we took our way to the haunts of men again. But now I had made my

discerned at the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. Paddling over

Nevertheless, of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden

pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as to merit a

ever. Not an intermitting spring! Perhaps on that spring morning

through which rushes and flags have pushed up. I used to admire the

The pond was my well ready dug. For four months in the year its

and the moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed

people tell me that they heard it in their youth -- that anciently

long, it has acquired such wonderful purity, who would not regret

Haven, an expansion of Concord River, said to contain some seventy

sky itself, alternating with the original dark green on the opposite

particular description. It is a clear and deep green well, half a

wells which are protected from it. The temperature of the pond

mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.

The skaters and water-bugs finally disappear in the latter part

shore is most abrupt; so that, unfortunately, it is no longer a

covered with snow, both water and ice were almost as green as grass.

made firm and hard to the feet of the wader by the pressure of the

purity of its waters or the color of its sands. In these as in

shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that,

surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its

Yet a single glass of its water held up to the light is as colorless

planted them. There also I have found, in considerable quantities,

boat, filling the surrounding woods with circling and dilating

days, they leave their havens and adventurously glide forth from the

following circumstance. About fifteen years ago you could see the

brush -- this the light dust-cloth -- which retains no breath that

is on the one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flints Pond,

the atmosphere from another. You would think that you could walk

fain have exhausted the waters within it; who regretted only that it

sometimes of a dark slate-color. The sea, however, is said to be

long, with silvery sides and a greenish back, somewhat dace-like in

expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?

and squirming to the upper air. It was very queer, especially in

citizens, in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical

paved. My townsmen have all heard the tradition -- the oldest

"body," but a small piece of the same will be colorless. How large

Fountain? or what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is

with an ice chisel which I had, and cutting down the longest birch

he had expected to get a good saw-log, but it was so rotten as to be

was worth the while, if only to feel the wind blow on your cheek

themes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to

shore-line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, "the

could imagine on the seashore, and had as good a moral. It is by

by two diverging lines, but the skaters glide over it without

all its ripples. It is perennially young, and I may stand and see a

waves on these hills; but I observe that the surrounding hills are

I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of

those days he sometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other

They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How

branches pointing down, and the small end firmly fastened in the

could not remember when it was not there. Several pretty large logs

light, and follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they

on the right or left, their fins, like sails, set all around them.

fishing goes on again in the meadow. This makes a difference of

This same summer the pond has begun to fall again. It is remarkable

much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than

morning, as silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and,

of heaven! ye disgrace earth.

The shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded white stones

in diameter. You can even detect a water-bug (Gyrinus) ceaselessly

strung on a thread, and when we had done, far in the night, threw

amphitheatre for some land of sylvan spectacle. I have spent many

which had their dwelling forty feet below, or sometimes dragging

hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface.

dry under it to the opposite hills, and that the swallows which skim

long habit of grasping harpy-like; -- so it is not named for me. I

that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. A

eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also

Are its water and its sand,

Justice reigns, not one innocent huckleberry can be transported

when Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden Walden Pond was already in

was cut down last winter another is springing up by its shore as

My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you

for that. They are similar to those found in rivers; but as there

disappeared.

undulation of the surface, they look like huge water snakes in

dimples, in lines of beauty, as it were the constant welling up of

ask the cowboy or the partridge. It is a vulgar error to suppose

which God forbid, it can be made to flow thither again. If by

Flints, or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest lake and inland

part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off in the

a mile and a half beyond Fair Haven. This is my lake country.

undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the lake! Again

swallow dip apparently to pick an insect from its surface as of

great distance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are

remember when it was a foot or two lower, and also when it was at

uncleansed, all contiguous to one another! Stocked with men! A

was cut off square at the ends. It was very clumsy, but lasted a

fable. Nevertheless, this pond is not very fertile in fish. Its

as most water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth.

toward the shore, and hauled it over and along and out on to the ice

or drink, are thinking to bring its water, which should be as sacred

him who thought only of its money value; whose presence perchance

all.

We have one other pond just like this, White Pond, in Nine Acre

a slight breeze struck it, or a few rain-drops fell there. When I

us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but he occasionally

house a row of pitch pines, fifteen feet high, has been killed and

wear down a material which has already acquired consistency. They

forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if

see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflections. But, as I was

water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wind of a gull,

undulations produced by my boat extended almost as far as I could

gently to one of these places, I was surprised to find myself

mussels in it; muskrats and minks leave their traces about it, and

sand-bar running into it, with very deep water on one side, on which

You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy

manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake. It is

being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors

dimpling the surface with their tails in the moonlight, and

Corner, about two and a half miles westerly; but, though I am

since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond

engaged the hill shook and suddenly sank, and only one old squaw,

with dew in a spring morning. Every motion of an oar or an insect

sky water, whose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his

to find that it was wrong end upward, with the stumps of the

centre I do not know a third of this pure and well-like character.

tints of October, but the sombre November colors of the surrounding

which the fishes dart at and so dimple it again. It is like molten

to raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my

hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the

the lake, on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps from time to

at least; the water standing at this great height for a year or

sixty feet of line about the pond as I drifted in the gentle night

existence, and even then breaking up in a gentle spring rain

on some of its bays which are not so deep but that the reflection

The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, th九_九_藏_書ough very

Goose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to Flints; Fair

and the dark surrounding woods, are gone, and the villagers, who

fifteen rods from the only shore they knew, which place was long

Viewed from a hilltop it reflects the color of the sky; but near at

which I could find in the neighborhood with my knife, I made a

finally blown over into the pond, and after the top had become

A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is

introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the countrys champion,

at Walden, in sultry dog-day weather, looking down through the woods

great many years before it became water-logged and perhaps sank to

about the still frozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when

ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and recently attained their

accompanied with mist and a southerly wind, and covered with myriads

a thread of finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and

my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most

rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and

which had secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and

and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased to look upon

but this water is of such crystalline purity that the body of the

never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms,

As near as he could remember, it stood twelve or fifteen rods from

deep water, many rods from the shore. It was even supposed by some

then as good as any, if not the best, in the town. In the winter,

day be built here may still preserve some trace of this.

and hardly more than the impression of its flat bottom left amid the

or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the

the bottom. He did not know whose it was; it belonged to the pond.

approached carelessly and alarmed them, they made a sudden splash

and a part of two falls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years

nearest the pond; and, moreover, there are most stones where the

does not detect a flag nor a bulrush, nor even a lily, yellow or

and all waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore is

It is earths eye; looking into which the beholder measures the

White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the

where it became cool in the night, and remained so during the day;

maples send forth a mass of fibrous red roots several feet long from

and a casual observer would say that there were no weeds at all in

third of a mile. They are exclusively woodland. All our Concord

the pump. Whoever camps for a week in summer by the shore of a

after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. Let our

"In the middle of the latter may be seen, when the water is very

beautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the woods, is White Pond; --

communicating by a long flaxen line with mysterious nocturnal fishes

him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing

the shore, where the water was thirty or forty feet deep. It was in

acres, is a mile southwest; and White Pond, of about forty acres, is

they are seen to be of very different colors. Walden is blue at one

no privilege to him to behold it. I respect not his labors, his

atmosphere. I have seen our river, when, the landscape being

mystery to me. I detect the paver. If the name was not derived

likened to it, but few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers

suddenly groping in total darkness. Through this, whistling a tune,

erect and swaying till in the course of time the handle rotted off,

water-fowl, and that there were many eagles about it. He came here

if I had not disturbed it. Making another hole directly over it

all water which is exposed to the air is colder than springs and

slip-noose, which I attached to its end, and, letting it down

impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the suns hazy

title to fame, and these are the only eels I have heard of here; --

raises them for the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet

neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring

in a calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite

opposite side. Some think it is bottomless. It is nowhere muddy,

said, a swallow skims so low as to touch it. It may be that in the

tied together. An old man, a potter, who lived by the pond before

glass cooled but not congealed, and the few motes in it are pure and

In the warmest weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar,

many large trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom, which

acquainted with most of the ponds within a dozen miles of this

lustily as ever; the same thought is welling up to its surface that

intermediate in its nature between land and sky. On land only the

firmer-fleshed than those in the river and most other ponds, as the

kinds: a long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those caught

forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor.

when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor

after practising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded

and the engines soot. One proposes that it be called "Gods Drop."

defend your eyes against the reflected as well as the true sun, for

this piscine murder will out -- and from my distant perch I

obliged to pile them up in walls on both sides of the railroad cut

fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so

waters edge, as old probably as the race of man here, worn by the

go not there to see him nor to hear of him; who never saw it, who

bottom all around the shore, where it is visited by hummingbirds in

less than a hens egg in size, where all around is bare sand. At

the pond westward you are obliged to employ both your hands to

brazen face; who regarded even the wild ducks which settled in it as

yet smoother and darker water, separated from the rest as if by an

they grow in. The stones extend a rod or two into the water, and

to the next days dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a

adventurously, from time to time, in dark summer nights, with a

Now the trunks of trees on the bottom, and the old log canoe,

though I also resorted to a spring in the neighborhood. It was as

resolved that in the afternoon, with the aid of his neighbors, he

pickerel, though not abundant, are its chief boast. I have seen at

sea, lies about a mile east of Walden. It is much larger, being

my minds eye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder

perhaps a water-target or two; all which however a bather might not

glass will have a green tint, owing, as the makers say, to its

blue one day and green another without any perceptible change in the

of a rain-storm of several days duration, when the sky was still

who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for

the Indians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as

name to it? Some skin-flint, who loved better the reflecting

surface amid the reflected skies and trees. Over this great expanse

perceive; and these plants are clean and bright like the element

is a vitreous greenish blue, as I remember it, like those patches of

trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised to detect

two years, and now, in the summer of 52, is just five feet higher

four feet from the ground, in the effort to maintain themselves; and

grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind.

may reflect the sky at the right angle, or because there is more

depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are

thither from the countrys hills.

abruptly from the water to the height of forty to eighty feet,

engineers and firemen and brakemen, and those passengers who have a

the air being fun of mist, I made haste to take my place at the oars

mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly distinguishable

shore as it did a thousand years ago.

of which the Indians were never guilty, and while they were thus

bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its

the ocean wave?

The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in

a bright green weed is brought up on anchors even in midwinter.

there is usually a little sediment, probably from the decay of the

cutting, when wood was cheaper; but now they have mostly

sparkle on it, or, perchance, a duck plumes itself, or, as 九九藏書I have

surrounded sometimes by thousands of small perch and shiners,

unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the

ripple marks on the sandy bottom, at the north end of this pond,

looking over the surface, I saw here and there at a distance a faint

pipewort perhaps, from half an inch to four inches in diameter, and

or an insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in circling

time to time, the creaking note of some unknown bird close at hand.

This pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, for there is

completely overcast and the air was full of mist, I observed that

successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves

greatest height at the same time with the latter. The same is true,

water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished from them.

the afternoon till noon the next day, the sixth of March, 1846, the

And its deepest resort

grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers,

hillside.

bequeathed it to Concord. I see by its face that it is visited by

the winter, and he had been getting out ice in the forenoon, and had

gradations from the low shrubs of the shore to the highest trees.

have laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have

distance a fish describes an arc of three or four feet in the air,

home by the shore.

breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are

beasts, until I elicited a growl from every wooded vale and

November, usually, in a calm day, there is absolutely nothing to

is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above

the Revolution, told him once that there was an iron chest at the

is a model farm.

but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable boundary

cursed all the shores; who exhausted the land around it, and would

poor farmers. A model farm! where the house stands like a fungus in

shore, about the year 1824, which it has not been possible to do for

versicolor) grows thinly in the pure water, rising from the stony

produces a flash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo!

warmest of any water tried, though it is the coldest that I know of

am thus particular because the weight of a fish is commonly its only

Flints Pond! Such is the poverty of our nomenclature. What

gleaming against the distant pine woods, separating one stratum of

Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly,

This rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use

Some consider blue "to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or

rippling it perceptibly. When the surface is considerably agitated

requires mud, or the common sweet flag, the blue flag (Iris

geese frequent it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows

blue than the sky itself; and at such a time, being on its surface,

very few breams, and a couple of eels, one weighing four pounds -- I

in the world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows in how many

within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to

Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the account of

where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it.

know. It is commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer,

the same reflection; and I can almost say, Walden, is it you?

sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the

but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legislature gave him --

a body of Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint I

now wear, and obtained a patent of Heaven to be the only Walden Pond

measures fourteen inches in diameter." In the spring of 49 I

with the wrecks of the forest. Formerly I had come to this pond

There were marks of an axe and of woodpeckers on the butt. He

ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human

When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely

had either been blown over formerly, or left on the ice at the last

fertile in fish; but it is comparatively shallow, and not remarkably

the skater insects, at equal intervals scattered over its whole

occasioned by its inlets and outlets, and the smaller intermediate

a "Topographical Description of the Town of Concord," by one of its

dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal

occasionally a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I

When, as was commonly the case, I had none to commune with, I used

maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She

it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in such a case,

with small dark brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint

face, I came upon the mouldering wreck of a boat, the sides gone,

redeem it, forsooth, in his eyes -- and would have drained and sold

an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr

require many years for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise

the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in the west before sundown.

their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or

I remember that when I first looked into these depths there were

Society, the author, after speaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds,

bottom; but they are too regular and some of them plainly too fresh

Sometimes, after staying in a village parlor till the family had

since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial and essential

The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and

may still be seen lying on the bottom, where, owing to the

solid." But, looking directly down into our waters from a boat,

and looking with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have

huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been known there

one time lying on the ice pickerel of at least three different

commonly produce no fruit, bear an abundant crop under these

much alike that you would say they must be connected under ground.

distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just

motion.

by the surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this

canoe, which took the place of an Indian one of the same material

season ticket and see it often, are better men for the sight. The

extent, by their motions in the sun produce the finest imaginable

some impatient companion who had been fishing on the pond since

then the bottom is pure sand, except in the deepest parts, where

sound, stirring them up as the keeper of a menagerie his wild

wears best, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been

after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear undulating white

are expanded, and it may be simply the result of the prevailing blue

thought that it might have been a dead tree on the shore, but was

accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the woods,

many years ago, when I had been cutting holes through the ice in

asserts its title to a shore, and thus the shore is shorn, and the

or glaucous color. Many years since I used to go there to collect

interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if

great velocity, which the fisherman safely set down at eight pounds

side, standing on its head, with its helve erect and gently swaying

Successive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and fathomed

this time mere vegetable mould and undistinguishable pond shore,

I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven

between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both.

from that of some English locality -- Saffron Walden, for instance

continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is

glimmer, as if some skater insects which had escaped the frosts

no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh; -- a mirror in which all

Lies high in my thought.

mingled with it, or itself should ever go to waste its sweetness in

soothing employment, on one of those fine days in the fall when all

you slowly raise, pulling hand over hand, some horned pout squeaking

more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on by speech.

like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual loon. These are

day, as I crept along its sedgy shore, the fresh spray blowing in my

mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference, and

which the noise of my oars had seared into the depths, and I saw

it for the mud at its bottom. It did not turn his mill, and it was

An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years

of 九九藏書his camp to be independent of the luxury of ice.

fishes which inhabit this pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, and

The trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each

first you wonder if the Indians could have formed them on the ice

as far as my observation goes, of White Pond.

invisible cobweb, boom of the water nymphs, resting on it. From a

water; the top of this tree is broken off, and at that place

promises. The shiners, pouts, and perch also, and indeed all the

type alto-relievo. The ornamented grounds of villas which will one

think that they are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the

on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hillside,

Some have been puzzled to tell how the shore became so regularly

if they were a compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level

and assuaged, as, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling

water, and the rushes which grew in Indian file, in waving lines,

side and became the present shore. It is very certain, at any rate,

away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for

Since the wood-cutters, and the railroad, and I myself have

year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much construct as

distinguish its surface; though it no longer reflected the bright

I might next cast my line upward into the air, as well as downward

a muckheap, chambers for men horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed and

they used much profanity, as the story goes, though this vice is one

state of cultivation, being manured with the hearts and brains of

from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of a misty bluish-green

This is that portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being

border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself

discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered

farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape,

market cart, and they become mere provender. As long as Eternal

and there is one bright flash where it emerges, and another where it

broad skylight, sometimes giving to the surface an appearance as if

sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark

light mixed with it, it appears at a little distance of a darker

partly to the sun on the roof, was 42x, or one degree colder than

surface of a dollar, or a bright cent, in which he could see his own

blundering purpose there, and slow to make up its mind. At length

though not corresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can

water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it.

to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there, as

close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in clear white

over might perch on it. Indeed, they sometimes dive below this

mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color of its iris.

Flints Pond, a mile eastward, allowing for the disturbance

June; and the color both of its bluish blades and its flowers and

leaves which have been wafted on to it so many successive falls, and

half an inch long, and they are produced only at one season of the

in summer, when, beside, shallow and stagnant surface water is not

are no suckers nor lampreys here, I know not by what fish they could

its character, which I mention here chiefly to link my facts to

high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth, and

In such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect

yield their true flavor to the purchaser of them, nor to him who

as you looked down from the west end, it had the appearance of an

carefully, passed it over the knob of the handle, and drew it by a

I have known the high blueberry bushes about the shore, which

across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was

unremembered nations literatures this has been the Castalian

perfectly spherical. These wash back and forth in shallow water on

change is in me. It has not acquired one permanent wrinkle after

fit only for fuel, if for that. He had some of it in his shed then.

interwoven with its own; not from him who could show no title to it

decayed pad, with its veins. It was as impressive a wreck as one

least five feet higher, than when I lived by it. There is a narrow

boat by moonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from

appear blue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a

a gem of the first water which Concord wears in her coronet.

have never proved. The water of our river is black or a very dark

shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now

the wood, with occasional vistas through which you see the water.

said to contain one hundred and ninety-seven acres, and is more

circles seek the shore and all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap

as an equal quantity of air. It is well known that a large plate of

line, as it were by mistake, and are undeceived. As you look over

as the Ganges at least, to the village in a pipe, to wash their

And the breeze that passes oer;

whose trees no fruits, but dollars; who loves not the beauty of his

was twenty-five feet deep. Out of curiosity, I lay down on the ice

There were many such schools in the pond, apparently improving the

I helped boil a kettle of chowder, some six rods from the main

Probably many ichthyologists would make new varieties of some of

green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a

by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but

trespassers; his fingers grown into crooked and bony talons from the

were dropping into the water and were washed to my feet; and one

the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, every leaf and twig

sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in comparison. It

since converted into a meadow. But the pond has risen steadily for

went a-chestnutting there in the fall, on windy days, when the nuts

good when a week old as the day it was dipped, and had no taste of

Than I live to Walden even.

and looked through the hole, until I saw the axe a little on one

conjectured that when the hill shook these stones rolled down its

might be collected there, or, perchance, the surface, being so

great grease-spot, redolent of manures and buttermilk! Under a high

strikes the water; sometimes the whole silvery arc is revealed; or

waters have two colors at least; one when viewed at a distance, and

and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as

bottom, and that he had seen it. Sometimes it would come floating

its shores, or some wild man or child the thread of whose history is

beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern

talked with the man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who told

twenty-five years; and, on the other hand, my friends used to listen

so steep that in many places a single leap will carry you into water

a-fishing, and used an old log canoe which he found on the shore.

suddenly the dimples ceased, for they were produced by the perch,

such a height as this, overlooking the pond, and study the dimpling

in forty feet of water, and twenty or thirty rods from the shore,

the water of one of the coldest wells in the village just drawn.

circles which are incessantly inscribed on its otherwise invisible

that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to

It has the same stony shore, and its waters are of the same hue. As

brown to one looking directly down on it, and, like that of most

In warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat playing the flute,

and one hundred and fifty feet respectively, within a quarter and a

cleanest when the water is lowest. On the side of the pond next my

distinguished by their transverse bars, and you think that they must

pounds -- to say nothing of another which carried off a reel with

for any purpose, and so, when the ice melted, they sank to the

white, but only a few small heart-leaves and potamogetons, and

willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back

they are equally bright; and if, between the two, you survey its

rushes; yet its model was sharply defined, as if it were a large

sends forth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There

wonderful with what elaborateness this simple fact is advertised --

of the boat, and I at the other; but not many words passed between

except by the clouds and evaporation. The surroundihｔｔps://ｒeaｄ.９９ｃｓｗ•cｏｍng hills rise

all retired, I have returned to the woods, and, partly with a view

its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its

hills. Though I passed over it as gently as possible, the slight

golden-colored, and shaped like the last, but peppered on the sides

there is no disturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away

small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off

be ascetic fish that find a subsistence there. Once, in the winter,

that formerly stood there. I find that even so long ago as 1792, in

flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk

mingled with it. Moreover, in summer, Walden never becomes so warm

worn out all my village friends, I rambled still farther westward

(Hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus

that would be the last to be seen of its bottom till it rose on the

No, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be named

line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quarter of a

breeze, now and then feeling a slight vibration along it, indicative

either solid grass, or have a little sand in the middle. At first

shore by short impulses till they completely cover it. It is a

was not English hay or cranberry meadow -- there was nothing to

there are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparently, in calm

ago, when it was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that in

water is as cold as it is pure at all times; and I think that it is

on the surface, and thinking it was going to rain hard immediately,

Rather let it be named from the fishes that swim in it, the wild

pure lakes sufficed them. Even then it had commenced to rise and

Maker, ay, and it may be to me. It is the work of a brave man

warmed by the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also

never bathed in it, who never loved it, who never protected it, who

Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond,

much agitated, in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves

that the pond had sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest

all sides of their stems in the water, and to the height of three or

avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?

overflow must be referred to causes which affect the deep springs.

encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down

alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding from the

of ducks and geese, which had not heard of the fall, when still such

glassy surface of a lake." When you invert your head, it looks like

time. When the water is at its height, the alders, willows, and

the day. Though seen but once, it helps to wash out State Street

low, a tree which appears as if it grew in the place where it now

level, at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed

living thus reserved and austere, like a hermit in the woods, so

hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore. Some have referred

which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds through which in some

These are all very firm fish, and weigh more than their size

respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor --

day, year in year out, they grind such grist as I carry to them.

surrounded by myriads of small perch, about five inches long, of a

few take that way. If you would know the flavor of huckleberries,

surely, in whom there was no guile! He rounded this water with his

I am its stony shore,

the sand by cartloads, to make sandpaper with, and I have continued

I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and

the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves began to run, and

freely, and see the waves run, and remember the life of mariners. I

to and fro with the pulse of the pond; and there it might have stood

built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on its

it, and passed away, and still its water is green and pellucid as

bather appears of an alabaster whiteness, still more unnatural,

transmitted through the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal

little in it to tempt a fisherman. Instead of the white lily, which

of some life prowling about its extremity, of dull uncertain

A lake is the landscapes most beautiful and expressive feature.

It is no dream of mine,

cliffs around are its overhanging brows.

has beheld this vision of serenity and purity once at least during

short season before winter would draw an icy shutter over their

a poor name from its commonness, whether derived from the remarkable

Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken harmony, far

though it is not a distinct species, projecting above the surface in

thought attracted the fishes, we caught pouts with a bunch of worms

lakes receive as true names at least as the Icarian Sea, where

surface critically, it is literally as smooth as glass, except where

distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a small lake

the perch leaped much higher than before, half out of water, a

and stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered

remarkably deep, which is the most common here; and another,

to visit it ever since. One who frequents it proposes to call it

men! As if you were to raise your potatoes in the churchyard! Such

stands, although the roots are fifty feet below the surface of the

aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore

water-logged, while the butt-end was still dry and light, had

a pebble; yet the smallest are made of equally coarse materials,

distinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods

float there for a generation, the most proper vessel for the lake.

other respects, however, it is a lesser twin of Walden. They are so

Occasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, I joined

it. In such transparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting

water which had stood in the room where I sat from five oclock in

fishes as it were with one hook.

blood-red ones, very much like a trout. The specific name

shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at length, and

that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well

light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We

four or five rods directly into one of the holes, where the water

The water is so transparent that the bottom can easily be

me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years before.

amid hills which rise from the waters edge; for the water in which

with incredulity when I told them, that a few years later I was

top of a pitch pine, of the kind called yellow pine hereabouts,

all the animals of consequence which frequent it now.

remarkably full of the same kind of stones, so that they have been

corresponding to these marks, rank behind rank, as if the waves had

woodland lake that I discovered so many years ago; where a forest

companion, and, making a fire close to the waters edge, which we

large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky

smooth, betrayed where a spring welled up from the bottom. Paddling

its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.

which, as the limbs are magnified and distorted withal, produces a

quarter, and on the other directly and manifestly to Concord River,

circumstances.

ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge;

though on the southeast and east they attain to about one hundred

The cars never pause to look at it; yet I fancy that the

they furrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded

our characters, are they! We never learned meanness of them. How

pure. A walk through the woods thither was often my recreation. It

yore. It struck me again tonight, as if I had not seen it almost

over your head; and were it not for its remarkable transparency,

of October, when the severe frosts have come; and then and in

the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, to sit on a stump on

their schools dimly disappearing; so I spent a dry afternoon after

reticulatus would not apply to this; it should be guttatus rather.

to the ice, but, as if some evil genius had directed it, it slid

was then; it is the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its

preserve their form when dry for an indefinite period.

dishes with! -- to earn their Walden by the turning of a cock or

falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore; for, unlike 九-九-藏-書many ponds

earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and

hand, deepened and clarified it in his thought, and in his will

dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth. Farmers are

hilltop you can see a fish leap in almost any part; for not a

tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to their

commonly, by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient

this to the reflection of the verdure; but it is equally green there

than when I lived there, or as high as it was thirty years ago, and

in the river; a bright golden kind, with greenish reflections and

but more graceful construction, which perchance had first been a

trodden by the present occupants of the land. This is particularly

town, "to fresh woods and pastures new," or, while the sun was

inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and

pond, needs only bury a pail of water a few feet deep in the shade

pleasing mystery to the bottom.

and saw the perch, which I seem to have charmed, hovering around me,

a sandy bottom, and are sometimes cast on the shore. They are

I felt none on my cheek, and I anticipated a thorough soaking. But

attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen

it; and of noticeable plants, except in the little meadows recently

drifted out and sunk wrong end up. His father, eighty years old,

There have been caught in Walden pickerel, one weighing seven

and shiners, perhaps only an inch long, yet the former easily

thermometer having been up to 65x or 70x some of the time, owing

In the hollow of my hand

To ornament a line;

more, though it makes it difficult to walk round it, kills the

fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they are turned to

beautiful like the imperfections in glass. You may often detect a

with oxen; but, before he had gone far in his work, he was surprised

It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will

named Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. It has been

in some other parts of the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen

ripple the surface. One November afternoon, in the calm at the end

also, I have a faint recollection of a little fish some five inches

These, with Concord River, are my water privileges; and night and

northern, and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where

encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have elapsed

my house as a building erected for the convenience of fishermen; and

them. There are also a clean race of frogs and tortoises, and a few

fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild flowers which grow by

daily for more than twenty years -- Why, here is Walden, the same

over two pounds, shiners, chivins or roach (Leuciscus pulchellus), a

coves grape-vines had run over the trees next the water and formed

macularius) "teeter" along its stony shores all summer. I have

spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of

overflowed, which do not properly belong to it, a closer scrutiny

Even as late as the fifth of December, one year, I saw some dimples

be made. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin. These lend a

rise -- pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, and others -- and,

lines. Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end

scarcely know where it lies, instead of going to the pond to bathe

here and there, perhaps, is a thistle-down floating on its surface,

hence the water will again be as low as I have ever known it.

These experiences were very memorable and valuable to me -- anchored

trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of

fall, and had clarified its waters and colored them of the hue they

he concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still

which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that

order to catch pickerel, as I stepped ashore I tossed my axe back on

because he did not see him -- perch and pouts, some of each weighing

"still the shore" a "brave attempt resounds."

never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked God that He had made it.

much fairer than the pool before the farmers door, in which his

against the railroad sandbank, and in the spring, before the leaves

into this element, which was scarcely more dense. Thus I caught two

than I habitually dwell, into yet more unfrequented parts of the

hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with my philosophy.

-- one might suppose that it was called originally Walled-in Pond.

it, you may see, many feet beneath the surface, the schools of perch

I was equally pleased when he sat in my doorway to arrange his

monstrous effect, making fit studies for a Michael Angelo.

shrubs and trees which have sprung up about its edge since the last

rich bronze color in the green water, sporting there, and constantly

the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and

the Moore of Moore Hill, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an

Yet perchance the first who came to this well have left some

you would say that they were formed by the action of the waves, like

and rippling with their tails, as if one had struck the water with a

tree on the bank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to

with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on

It was made of two white pine logs dug out and pinned together, and

deep water and disappear. I was pleased to hear of the old log

like paving-stones, excepting one or two short sand beaches, and is

would take out the old yellow pine. He sawed a channel in the ice

and row homeward; already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though

between. The forest has never so good a setting, nor is so

down into the pond, were quenched with a loud hissing, and we were

profaned Walden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most

right had the unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm abutted on this

feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time unwittingly

Virid Lake. Perhaps it might be called Yellow Pine Lake, from the

other geological period it may have flowed, and by a little digging,

that the comparatively impure waters of Flints Pond should be

feet in diameter by a foot in height, consisting of small stones

midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet

up to the shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back into

engineer does not forget at night, or his nature does not, that he

setting, made my supper of huckleberries and blueberries on Fair

line along the birch, and so pulled the axe out again.

curious balls, composed apparently of fine grass or roots, of

that once there was no pond here, and now there is one; and this

brushy bough, and instantly took refuge in the depths. At length

glaucous water.

The temperature of the Boiling Spring the same day was 45x, or the

rising to the surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving bubbles on

one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this

pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth surface but it

another, more proper, close at hand. The first depends more on the

sandy bottom. It was about a foot in diameter at the big end, and

Haven Hill, and laid up a store for several days. The fruits do not

progressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off; for

the clouds, I seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon,

sect of Coenobites. There was one older man, an excellent fisher

them in the workshop or the teachers desk. But since I left those

Sometimes, having had a surfeit of human society and gossip, and

drawing of a plug! That devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending

the pond was remarkably smooth, so that it was difficult to

I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it

especially their reflections, is in singular harmony with the

the burning brands high into the air like skyrockets, which, coming

pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle

Nature has woven a natural selvage, and the eye rises by just

for many a year there will be no more rambling through the aisles of

time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying

He used to make a cable for his anchor of strips of hickory bark

contains about sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial spring in the

There are few traces of mans hand to be seen. The water laves the