The Ponds
wells which are protected from it. The temperature of the pond
or drink, are thinking to bring its water, which should be as sacred
citizens, in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical
interwoven with its own; not from him who could show no title to it
fain have exhausted the waters within it; who regretted only that it
yield their true flavor to the purchaser of them, nor to him who
fishes which inhabit this pond, are much cleaner, handsomer, and
might be collected there, or, perchance, the surface, being so
the winter, and he had been getting out ice in the forenoon, and had
then as good as any, if not the best, in the town. In the winter,
thought that it might have been a dead tree on the shore, but was
You may see from a boat, in calm weather, near the sandy
daily for more than twenty years -- Why, here is Walden, the same
pleasing mystery to the bottom.
bottom; but they are too regular and some of them plainly too fresh
be made. Perhaps they are the nests of the chivin. These lend a
hence the water will again be as low as I have ever known it.
face, I came upon the mouldering wreck of a boat, the sides gone,
strikes the water; sometimes the whole silvery arc is revealed; or
which God forbid, it can be made to flow thither again. If by
them in the workshop or the teachers desk. But since I left those
worn out all my village friends, I rambled still farther westward
talked with the man who lives nearest the pond in Sudbury, who told
at least; the water standing at this great height for a year or
I am its stony shore,
to find that it was wrong end upward, with the stumps of the
their schools dimly disappearing; so I spent a dry afternoon after
of some life prowling about its extremity, of dull uncertain
day, as I crept along its sedgy shore, the fresh spray blowing in my
water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wind of a gull,
it; and of noticeable plants, except in the little meadows recently
distinguish the circling undulations when they are half a dozen rods
Our intercourse was thus altogether one of unbroken harmony, far
here and there, perhaps, is a thistle-down floating on its surface,
sea, lies about a mile east of Walden. It is much larger, being
ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human
woodland lake that I discovered so many years ago; where a forest
My Muse may be excused if she is silent henceforth. How can you
raises them for the market. There is but one way to obtain it, yet
maples send forth a mass of fibrous red roots several feet long from
and the dark surrounding woods, are gone, and the villagers, who
and looked through the hole, until I saw the axe a little on one
commonly produce no fruit, bear an abundant crop under these
ask the cowboy or the partridge. It is a vulgar error to suppose
by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but
It has the same stony shore, and its waters are of the same hue. As
dishes with! -- to earn their Walden by the turning of a cock or
but this water is of such crystalline purity that the body of the
many years ago, when I had been cutting holes through the ice in
he had expected to get a good saw-log, but it was so rotten as to be
which the fishes dart at and so dimple it again. It is like molten
of which the Indians were never guilty, and while they were thus
few take that way. If you would know the flavor of huckleberries,
thought attracted the fishes, we caught pouts with a bunch of worms
glassy surface of a lake." When you invert your head, it looks like
line, as it were by mistake, and are undeceived. As you look over
amphitheatre for some land of sylvan spectacle. I have spent many
acres, is a mile southwest; and White Pond, of about forty acres, is
least five feet higher, than when I lived by it. There is a narrow
season ticket and see it often, are better men for the sight. The
golden-colored, and shaped like the last, but peppered on the sides
trace of their footsteps. I have been surprised to detect
through which rushes and flags have pushed up. I used to admire the
I remember that when I first looked into these depths there were
bather appears of an alabaster whiteness, still more unnatural,
third of a mile. They are exclusively woodland. All our Concord
quarter, and on the other directly and manifestly to Concord River,
when he first came here with his divining-rod, saw a thin vapor
the wood, with occasional vistas through which you see the water.
great many years before it became water-logged and perhaps sank to
There were many such schools in the pond, apparently improving the
The shore is composed of a belt of smooth rounded white stones
that once there was no pond here, and now there is one; and this
likened to it, but few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers
is a vitreous greenish blue, as I remember it, like those patches of
It was made of two white pine logs dug out and pinned together, and
have laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have
accustomed to fish from a boat in a secluded cove in the woods,
I was equally pleased when he sat in my doorway to arrange his
undulations produced by my boat extended almost as far as I could
There were marks of an axe and of woodpeckers on the butt. He
A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is
mussels in it; muskrats and minks leave their traces about it, and
undistinguishable. How peaceful the phenomena of the lake! Again
border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself
covered with snow, both water and ice were almost as green as grass.
spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of
the atmosphere from another. You would think that you could walk
all water which is exposed to the air is colder than springs and
and the moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, which was strewed
feet in diameter by a foot in height, consisting of small stones
us, for he had grown deaf in his later years, but he occasionally
in some other parts of the pond, some circular heaps half a dozen
over your head; and were it not for its remarkable transparency,
sky itself, alternating with the original dark green on the opposite
such a height as this, overlooking the pond, and study the dimpling
approached carelessly and alarmed them, they made a sudden splash
hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the
blundering purpose there, and slow to make up its mind. At length
to the ice, but, as if some evil genius had directed it, it slid
name to it? Some skin-flint, who loved better the reflecting
a body of Walden water would be required to reflect a green tint I
the day. Though seen but once, it helps to wash out State Street
less than a hens egg in size, where all around is bare sand. At
cliffs around are its overhanging brows.
In the warmest weather I usually placed a pailful in my cellar,
completely overcast and the air was full of mist, I observed that
for any purpose, and so, when the ice melted, they sank to the
sparkle on it, or, perchance, a duck plumes itself, or, as I have
tree on the bank, and then, as it were, fell into the water, to
To ornament a line;
grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled by the wind.
that would be the last to be seen of its bottom till it rose on the
These experiences were very memorable and valuable to me -- anchored
sand-bar running into it, with very deep water on one side, on which
first you wonder if the Indians could have formed them on the ice
type alto-relievo. The ornamented grounds of villas which will one
never bathed in it, who never loved it, who never protected it, who
like paving-stones, excepting one or two short sand beaches, and is
These, with Concord River, are my water privileges; and night and
him; who goes to market for his god as it is; on whose farm nothing
distinctly beautiful, as when seen from the middle of a small lake
very few breams, and a couple of eels, one weighing four pounds -- I
preserve their form when dry for an indefinite period.
in forty feet of water, and twenty or thirty rods from the shore,
Maker, ay, and it may be to me. It is the work of a brave man
like Fair Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual loon. These are
ripple marks on the sandy bottom, at the north end of this pon99lib•netd,
which is lower, by a similar chain of ponds through which in some
hilltop you can see a fish leap in almost any part; for not a
a-fishing, and used an old log canoe which he found on the shore.
particular description. It is a clear and deep green well, half a
shores the woodchoppers have still further laid them waste, and now
circumstances.
gradations from the low shrubs of the shore to the highest trees.
perhaps a water-target or two; all which however a bather might not
discerned at the depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. Paddling over
respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor --
occasioned by its inlets and outlets, and the smaller intermediate
"body," but a small piece of the same will be colorless. How large
have never proved. The water of our river is black or a very dark
the wind rose, the mist increased, and the waves began to run, and
great velocity, which the fisherman safely set down at eight pounds
overflowed, which do not properly belong to it, a closer scrutiny
abruptly from the water to the height of forty to eighty feet,
pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as to merit a
wonderful with what elaborateness this simple fact is advertised --
Successive nations perchance have drank at, admired, and fathomed
The cars never pause to look at it; yet I fancy that the
it, and passed away, and still its water is green and pellucid as
freely, and see the waves run, and remember the life of mariners. I
whose trees no fruits, but dollars; who loves not the beauty of his
sound, stirring them up as the keeper of a menagerie his wild
sect of Coenobites. There was one older man, an excellent fisher
fit only for fuel, if for that. He had some of it in his shed then.
asserts its title to a shore, and thus the shore is shorn, and the
this to the reflection of the verdure; but it is equally green there
glass cooled but not congealed, and the few motes in it are pure and
a gem of the first water which Concord wears in her coronet.
of heaven! ye disgrace earth.
go not there to see him nor to hear of him; who never saw it, who
And its deepest resort
fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so
coves grape-vines had run over the trees next the water and formed
The trees have ample room to expand on the water side, and each
no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh; -- a mirror in which all
some impatient companion who had been fishing on the pond since
Indian fable does not in any respect conflict with the account of
alternately rising and falling, approaching and receding from the
fall, and had clarified its waters and colored them of the hue they
water; the top of this tree is broken off, and at that place
The water is so transparent that the bottom can easily be
sixty feet of line about the pond as I drifted in the gentle night
Yet perchance the first who came to this well have left some
setting, made my supper of huckleberries and blueberries on Fair
scarcely know where it lies, instead of going to the pond to bathe
fishes as it were with one hook.
and shiners, perhaps only an inch long, yet the former easily
sides of the waves, which last appeared but muddy in comparison. It
The skaters and water-bugs finally disappear in the latter part
hand, deepened and clarified it in his thought, and in his will
many large trunks to be seen indistinctly lying on the bottom, which
solid." But, looking directly down into our waters from a boat,
or changeable silks and sword blades suggest, more cerulean than the
there are no skaters nor water-bugs on it, but apparently, in calm
dollars. Give me the poverty that enjoys true wealth. Farmers are
had either been blown over formerly, or left on the ice at the last
Than I live to Walden even.
macularius) "teeter" along its stony shores all summer. I have
discerned a matchless and indescribable light blue, such as watered
would take out the old yellow pine. He sawed a channel in the ice
am thus particular because the weight of a fish is commonly its only
that ancient settler whom I have mentioned, who remembers so well
see, and gave a ribbed appearance to the reflections. But, as I was
The shore is irregular enough not to be monotonous. I have in
glaucous water.
this piscine murder will out -- and from my distant perch I
drawing of a plug! That devilish Iron Horse, whose ear-rending
slip-noose, which I attached to its end, and, letting it down
"still the shore" a "brave attempt resounds."
so steep that in many places a single leap will carry you into water
They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How
surely, in whom there was no guile! He rounded this water with his
centre I do not know a third of this pure and well-like character.
fertile in fish; but it is comparatively shallow, and not remarkably
two years, and now, in the summer of 52, is just five feet higher
the water of one of the coldest wells in the village just drawn.
are expanded, and it may be simply the result of the prevailing blue
the air being fun of mist, I made haste to take my place at the oars
greatest height at the same time with the latter. The same is true,
think that they are hardly to be accounted for by the action of the
appear blue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a
if they were a compact flock of birds passing just beneath my level
brushy bough, and instantly took refuge in the depths. At length
with oxen; but, before he had gone far in his work, he was surprised
curious balls, composed apparently of fine grass or roots, of
depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are
to the next days dinner, spent the hours of midnight fishing from a
when Adam and Eve were driven out of Eden Walden Pond was already in
which, as the limbs are magnified and distorted withal, produces a
neigh is heard throughout the town, has muddied the Boiling Spring
surrounded sometimes by thousands of small perch and shiners,
my fates had impelled me to; days when idleness was the most
but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legislature gave him --
thermometer having been up to 65x or 70x some of the time, owing
require many years for its accomplishment. I have observed one rise
forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor.
the winter sky seen through cloud vistas in the west before sundown.
mingled with it. Moreover, in summer, Walden never becomes so warm
much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than
and row homeward; already the rain seemed rapidly increasing, though
circles seek the shore and all is smooth again. Not a fish can leap
unremembered nations literatures this has been the Castalian
engineer does not forget at night, or his nature does not, that he
poor farmers. A model farm! where the house stands like a fungus in
part of the fruit is lost with the bloom which is rubbed off in the
their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or
gleaming against the distant pine woods, separating one stratum of
In warm evenings I frequently sat in the boat playing the flute,
requires mud, or the common sweet flag, the blue flag (Iris
erect and swaying till in the course of time the handle rotted off,
away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for
carefully, passed it over the knob of the handle, and drew it by a
An old man who used to frequent this pond nearly sixty years
Flints, or Sandy Pond, in Lincoln, our greatest lake and inland
brown to one looking directly down on it, and, like that of most
ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and recently attained their
short season before winter would draw an icy shutter over their
profaned Walden, perhaps the most attractive, if not the most
geese frequent it in the spring and fall, the white-bellied swallows
fruits, whose fruits are not ripe for him till they are turned to
It is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will
another, more proper, close at hand. The first depends more on the
a bright green weed is brought up on anchors even in midwinter.
with the wrecks of the forest. Formerly I had come to this pond
versicolor) grows thinly in the pure water, rising from the stony
mile off in many places where in summer it is hardly九*九*藏*书*网 distinguishable
were dropping into the water and were washed to my feet; and one
Sometimes, after staying in a village parlor till the family had
yet smoother and darker water, separated from the rest as if by an
four or five rods directly into one of the holes, where the water
though not corresponding to the general wet and dryness. I can
avenging lance between the ribs of the bloated pest?
hills. Though I passed over it as gently as possible, the slight
the Indians were holding a pow-wow upon a hill here, which rose as
now wear, and obtained a patent of Heaven to be the only Walden Pond
engineers and firemen and brakemen, and those passengers who have a
themes in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to
feet of aboriginal hunters, and still from time to time unwittingly
though on the southeast and east they attain to about one hundred
side and became the present shore. It is very certain, at any rate,
beautiful, of all our lakes, the gem of the woods, is White Pond; --
long, with silvery sides and a greenish back, somewhat dace-like in
hummed a psalm, which harmonized well enough with my philosophy.
huckleberry never reaches Boston; they have not been known there
against the railroad sandbank, and in the spring, before the leaves
This rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use
hilltop, it is of a vivid green next the shore. Some have referred
one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this
manifestly disturbs the equilibrium of the whole lake. It is
pure. A walk through the woods thither was often my recreation. It
those days he sometimes saw it all alive with ducks and other
it. In such transparent and seemingly bottomless water, reflecting
waves on these hills; but I observe that the surrounding hills are
time. When the water is at its height, the alders, willows, and
which is more elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that
of his camp to be independent of the luxury of ice.
and a casual observer would say that there were no weeds at all in
which the noise of my oars had seared into the depths, and I saw
transmitted through the earth, melts first and forms a narrow canal
Lies high in my thought.
White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the
as far as my observation goes, of White Pond.
one time lying on the ice pickerel of at least three different
and their swimming impressed me as a kind of flight or hovering, as
finally blown over into the pond, and after the top had become
The pond was my well ready dug. For four months in the year its
there is usually a little sediment, probably from the decay of the
made firm and hard to the feet of the wader by the pressure of the
reticulatus would not apply to this; it should be guttatus rather.
sends forth its most vigorous branch in that direction. There
line along the birch, and so pulled the axe out again.
Walden shore, that Trojan horse, with a thousand men in his belly,
shore as it did a thousand years ago.
motion.
distinct to one standing on the middle of the pond in winter, just
is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above
broad skylight, sometimes giving to the surface an appearance as if
year. Moreover, the waves, I suspect, do not so much construct as
where it became cool in the night, and remained so during the day;
or an insect fall on the pond but it is thus reported in circling
fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild flowers which grow by
Yet a single glass of its water held up to the light is as colorless
fifteen rods from the only shore they knew, which place was long
gently to one of these places, I was surprised to find myself
toward the shore, and hauled it over and along and out on to the ice
and looking with divided vision, so as to see the reflection, I have
planted them. There also I have found, in considerable quantities,
time to time, the creaking note of some unknown bird close at hand.
Viewed from a hilltop it reflects the color of the sky; but near at
As near as he could remember, it stood twelve or fifteen rods from
In such a day, in September or October, Walden is a perfect
you would say that they were formed by the action of the waves, like
and skilled in all kinds of woodcraft, who was pleased to look upon
suddenly groping in total darkness. Through this, whistling a tune,
blue one day and green another without any perceptible change in the
I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven
remarkably full of the same kind of stones, so that they have been
soothing employment, on one of those fine days in the fall when all
boat, filling the surrounding woods with circling and dilating
leaves which have been wafted on to it so many successive falls, and
time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying
sometimes of a dark slate-color. The sea, however, is said to be
shores are so steep, and the woods on them were then so high, that,
him who thought only of its money value; whose presence perchance
Flints Pond, a mile eastward, allowing for the disturbance
a pebble; yet the smallest are made of equally coarse materials,
went a-chestnutting there in the fall, on windy days, when the nuts
a thread of finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and
impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the suns hazy
on the surface, and thinking it was going to rain hard immediately,
(Hirundo bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus
order to catch pickerel, as I stepped ashore I tossed my axe back on
a poor name from its commonness, whether derived from the remarkable
much agitated, in clear weather, so that the surface of the waves
the Revolution, told him once that there was an iron chest at the
surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some of its
defend your eyes against the reflected as well as the true sun, for
in diameter. You can even detect a water-bug (Gyrinus) ceaselessly
over two pounds, shiners, chivins or roach (Leuciscus pulchellus), a
monstrous effect, making fit studies for a Michael Angelo.
flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk
a mile and a half beyond Fair Haven. This is my lake country.
stands, although the roots are fifty feet below the surface of the
which had secreted himself under the boat in the night. Ducks and
to visit it ever since. One who frequents it proposes to call it
the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and
town, "to fresh woods and pastures new," or, while the sun was
living thus reserved and austere, like a hermit in the woods, so
communicating by a long flaxen line with mysterious nocturnal fishes
The temperature of the Boiling Spring the same day was 45x, or the
and hardly more than the impression of its flat bottom left amid the
it is reflected not only makes the best foreground in such a case,
within what period, nobody knows, though, as usual, many pretend to
if I had not disturbed it. Making another hole directly over it
long, it has acquired such wonderful purity, who would not regret
other respects, however, it is a lesser twin of Walden. They are so
hundred black points, three inches long, at once above the surface.
close at hand. The snow reprints it, as it were, in clear white
water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go without defiling it.
the perch leaped much higher than before, half out of water, a
accompanied with mist and a southerly wind, and covered with myriads
who would carry his God, to market, if he could get anything for
distinguished by their transverse bars, and you think that they must
eastern shore, where the water is eight or ten feet deep, and also
much alike that you would say they must be connected under ground.
inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and
atmosphere. I have seen our river, when, the landscape being
trespassers; his fingers grown into crooked and bony talons from the
it for the mud at its bottom. It did not turn his mill, and it was
water which had stood in the room where I sat from five oclock in
from that of some English locality -- Saffron Walden, for instance
day be built here may still preserve some trace of this.
cursed all the shores; who exhausted the land around it, and would
of a rain-storm of several days duration, when the sky 九_九_藏_书_网was still
following circumstance. About fifteen years ago you could see the
Nature has woven a natural selvage, and the eye rises by just
trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of
I might next cast my line upward into the air, as well as downward
is on the one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flints Pond,
water-fowl, and that there were many eagles about it. He came here
Some consider blue "to be the color of pure water, whether liquid or
into this element, which was scarcely more dense. Thus I caught two
morning, as silent and motionless as a duck or a floating leaf, and,
blue than the sky itself; and at such a time, being on its surface,
in the river; a bright golden kind, with greenish reflections and
the skater insects, at equal intervals scattered over its whole
about the still frozen middle. Like the rest of our waters, when
adventurously, from time to time, in dark summer nights, with a
my house as a building erected for the convenience of fishermen; and
successive capes overlap each other and suggest unexplored coves
after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone. Let our
by the surrounding hills is insignificant in amount, and this
blood-red ones, very much like a trout. The specific name
days, they leave their havens and adventurously glide forth from the
he concluded to dig a well here. As for the stones, many still
house a row of pitch pines, fifteen feet high, has been killed and
Goose Pond, of small extent, is on my way to Flints; Fair
and rippling with their tails, as if one had struck the water with a
A lake is the landscapes most beautiful and expressive feature.
lustily as ever; the same thought is welling up to its surface that
on some of its bays which are not so deep but that the reflection
its fountain, the gentle pulsing of its life, the heaving of its
small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off
my minds eye the western, indented with deep bays, the bolder
mingled with it, or itself should ever go to waste its sweetness in
its character, which I mention here chiefly to link my facts to
they are seen to be of very different colors. Walden is blue at one
hillside.
they are equally bright; and if, between the two, you survey its
This same summer the pond has begun to fall again. It is remarkable
I helped boil a kettle of chowder, some six rods from the main
surface amid the reflected skies and trees. Over this great expanse
which I could find in the neighborhood with my knife, I made a
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
but more graceful construction, which perchance had first been a
rich bronze color in the green water, sporting there, and constantly
opposite side. Some think it is bottomless. It is nowhere muddy,
circles which are incessantly inscribed on its otherwise invisible
remember when it was a foot or two lower, and also when it was at
and saw the perch, which I seem to have charmed, hovering around me,
since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond
Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond,
light, and follows the sky. In clear weather, in summer, they
perceive; and these plants are clean and bright like the element
wear down a material which has already acquired consistency. They
as most water which is exposed to the sun, on account of its depth.
breast. The thrills of joy and thrills of pain are
purity of its waters or the color of its sands. In these as in
our characters, are they! We never learned meanness of them. How
tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to their
the clouds, I seemed to be floating through the air as in a balloon,
Probably many ichthyologists would make new varieties of some of
that the comparatively impure waters of Flints Pond should be
measures fourteen inches in diameter." In the spring of 49 I
beasts, until I elicited a growl from every wooded vale and
where the axe has cleared a part, or a cultivated field abuts on it.
He used to make a cable for his anchor of strips of hickory bark
I have known the high blueberry bushes about the shore, which
never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms,
maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She
a sandy bottom, and are sometimes cast on the shore. They are
the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, to sit on a stump on
partly to the sun on the roof, was 42x, or one degree colder than
all retired, I have returned to the woods, and, partly with a view
introduced by mercenary Greeks! Where is the countrys champion,
These are all very firm fish, and weigh more than their size
across the seats, in a summer forenoon, dreaming awake, until I was
ponds, imparts to the body of one bathing in it a yellowish tinge;
in the world and distiller of celestial dews. Who knows in how many
the Moore of Moore Hill, to meet him at the Deep Cut and thrust an
and the engines soot. One proposes that it be called "Gods Drop."
waters have two colors at least; one when viewed at a distance, and
title to fame, and these are the only eels I have heard of here; --
surrounded by myriads of small perch, about five inches long, of a
pure lakes sufficed them. Even then it had commenced to rise and
though I also resorted to a spring in the neighborhood. It was as
being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors
glimmer, as if some skater insects which had escaped the frosts
that this fluctuation, whether periodical or not, appears thus to
warmed by the heat of the sun reflected from the bottom, and also
decayed pad, with its veins. It was as impressive a wreck as one
trodden by the present occupants of the land. This is particularly
no privilege to him to behold it. I respect not his labors, his
Sometimes, having had a surfeit of human society and gossip, and
brush -- this the light dust-cloth -- which retains no breath that
more, though it makes it difficult to walk round it, kills the
and there is one bright flash where it emerges, and another where it
and all waters which are subject to a daily tide, its shore is
boat by moonlight, serenaded by owls and foxes, and hearing, from
lines. Once in a while we sat together on the pond, he at one end
little in it to tempt a fisherman. Instead of the white lily, which
white, but only a few small heart-leaves and potamogetons, and
When I first paddled a boat on Walden, it was completely
resolved that in the afternoon, with the aid of his neighbors, he
drifted out and sunk wrong end up. His father, eighty years old,
I have said that Walden has no visible inlet nor outlet, but it
to and fro with the pulse of the pond; and there it might have stood
beautiful like the imperfections in glass. You may often detect a
on the shore, a narrow shelf-like path in the steep hillside,
great grease-spot, redolent of manures and buttermilk! Under a high
mark where a still subtler spirit sweeps over it.
ever. Not an intermitting spring! Perhaps on that spring morning
much fairer than the pool before the farmers door, in which his
Justice reigns, not one innocent huckleberry can be transported
invisible cobweb, boom of the water nymphs, resting on it. From a
on the right or left, their fins, like sails, set all around them.
mile long and a mile and three quarters in circumference, and
float there for a generation, the most proper vessel for the lake.
was then; it is the same liquid joy and happiness to itself and its
When, as was commonly the case, I had none to commune with, I used
nearest the pond; and, moreover, there are most stones where the
to it. There is no rawness nor imperfection in its edge there, as
aroused by the boat touching the sand, and I arose to see what shore
built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on its
except by the clouds and evaporation. The surrounding hills rise
with incredulity when I told them, that a few years later I was
waters edge, as old probably as the race of man here, worn by the
said, a swallow skims so low as to touch it. It may be that in the
suddenly the dimples ceased, for they were produced by the perch,
the pond westward you are obliged to employ both your hands to
九*九*藏*书*网shore-line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, "the
pounds -- to say nothing of another which carried off a reel with
wears best, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been
Even as late as the fifth of December, one year, I saw some dimples
fable. Nevertheless, this pond is not very fertile in fish. Its
sky water, whose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his
a slight breeze struck it, or a few rain-drops fell there. When I
And the breeze that passes oer;
could imagine on the seashore, and had as good a moral. It is by
attractive and productive industry. Many a forenoon have I stolen
overflow must be referred to causes which affect the deep springs.
looking over the surface, I saw here and there at a distance a faint
-- one might suppose that it was called originally Walled-in Pond.
there is no disturbance but it is thus at once gently smoothed away
shall, perhaps, look down thus on the surface of air at length, and
Fountain? or what nymphs presided over it in the Golden Age? It is
yore. It struck me again tonight, as if I had not seen it almost
home by the shore.
smooth, betrayed where a spring welled up from the bottom. Paddling
was cut off square at the ends. It was very clumsy, but lasted a
redeem it, forsooth, in his eyes -- and would have drained and sold
The pond rises and falls, but whether regularly or not, and
good when a week old as the day it was dipped, and had no taste of
of the boat, and I at the other; but not many words passed between
they furrow the water slightly, making a conspicuous ripple bounded
Haven, an expansion of Concord River, said to contain some seventy
rise -- pitch pines, birches, alders, aspens, and others -- and,
other geological period it may have flowed, and by a little digging,
undulation of the surface, they look like huge water snakes in
line, unobscured by weeds and twigs, and very obvious a quarter of a
June; and the color both of its bluish blades and its flowers and
a "Topographical Description of the Town of Concord," by one of its
is a model farm.
intermediate in its nature between land and sky. On land only the
that you have tasted huckleberries who never plucked them. A
the afternoon till noon the next day, the sixth of March, 1846, the
deep water and disappear. I was pleased to hear of the old log
I felt none on my cheek, and I anticipated a thorough soaking. But
from the bottom tinges them, its waters are of a misty bluish-green
In the hollow of my hand
especially their reflections, is in singular harmony with the
sometimes disturbed a fish hawk sitting on a white pine over the
uncleansed, all contiguous to one another! Stocked with men! A
between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both.
warmest of any water tried, though it is the coldest that I know of
dimples, in lines of beauty, as it were the constant welling up of
paved. My townsmen have all heard the tradition -- the oldest
the same reflection; and I can almost say, Walden, is it you?
water is as cold as it is pure at all times; and I think that it is
shore is most abrupt; so that, unfortunately, it is no longer a
twenty-five years; and, on the other hand, my friends used to listen
in summer, when, beside, shallow and stagnant surface water is not
all the animals of consequence which frequent it now.
mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color of its iris.
pushed off my boat in the morning, I disturbed a great mud-turtle
and one hundred and fifty feet respectively, within a quarter and a
encircling the pond, even where a thick wood has just been cut down
companion, and, making a fire close to the waters edge, which we
the pump. Whoever camps for a week in summer by the shore of a
Society, the author, after speaking of Walden and White Ponds, adds,
fishing goes on again in the meadow. This makes a difference of
surface of a dollar, or a bright cent, in which he could see his own
perfectly spherical. These wash back and forth in shallow water on
four feet from the ground, in the effort to maintain themselves; and
the bottom. He did not know whose it was; it belonged to the pond.
breeze, now and then feeling a slight vibration along it, indicative
corresponding to these marks, rank behind rank, as if the waves had
expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?
falling again, leaves an unobstructed shore; for, unlike many ponds
Since the wood-cutters, and the railroad, and I myself have
Nevertheless, of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden
acquainted with most of the ponds within a dozen miles of this
we took our way to the haunts of men again. But now I had made my
side, standing on its head, with its helve erect and gently swaying
branches pointing down, and the small end firmly fastened in the
glass will have a green tint, owing, as the makers say, to its
with an ice chisel which I had, and cutting down the longest birch
unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the
Now the trunks of trees on the bottom, and the old log canoe,
bequeathed it to Concord. I see by its face that it is visited by
this time mere vegetable mould and undistinguishable pond shore,
may reflect the sky at the right angle, or because there is more
as the Ganges at least, to the village in a pipe, to wash their
rising from the sward, and the hazel pointed steadily downward, and
ago, when it was dark with surrounding forests, tells me that in
because he did not see him -- perch and pouts, some of each weighing
grows free, whose fields bear no crops, whose meadows no flowers,
could not remember when it was not there. Several pretty large logs
pickerel or shiner picks an insect from this smooth surface but it
bottom all around the shore, where it is visited by hummingbirds in
water-logged, while the butt-end was still dry and light, had
all its ripples. It is perennially young, and I may stand and see a
since converted into a meadow. But the pond has risen steadily for
state of cultivation, being manured with the hearts and brains of
occasionally a travelling mud-turtle visits it. Sometimes, when I
swallow dip apparently to pick an insect from its surface as of
rippling it perceptibly. When the surface is considerably agitated
cutting, when wood was cheaper; but now they have mostly
has beheld this vision of serenity and purity once at least during
interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if
water, and the rushes which grew in Indian file, in waving lines,
and stone and cobweb sparkles now at mid-afternoon as when covered
the sand by cartloads, to make sandpaper with, and I have continued
me that it was he who got out this tree ten or fifteen years before.
the ocean wave?
November, usually, in a calm day, there is absolutely nothing to
Corner, about two and a half miles westerly; but, though I am
then the bottom is pure sand, except in the deepest parts, where
the burning brands high into the air like skyrockets, which, coming
light. It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface. We
more pleasing to remember than if it had been carried on by speech.
they used much profanity, as the story goes, though this vice is one
shore, about the year 1824, which it has not been possible to do for
all sides of their stems in the water, and to the height of three or
bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its
distinguish its surface; though it no longer reflected the bright
disappeared.
that formerly stood there. I find that even so long ago as 1792, in
extent, by their motions in the sun produce the finest imaginable
farm where everything has its price, who would carry the landscape,
was cut down last winter another is springing up by its shore as
tied together. An old man, a potter, who lived by the pond before
cleanest when the water is lowest. On the side of the pond next my
conjectured that when the hill shook these stones rolled down its
was worth the while, if only to feel the wind blow on your cheek
large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the earth. Sky
Virid Lake. Perhaps it might be called Yellow Pine Lake, from the
amid hills which rise from the waters edge; for the water in which
Are its water and its sand,
they grow in. The stones extend a rod or two into the 藏书网water, and
This pond has rarely been profaned by a boat, for there is
may still be seen lying on the bottom, where, owing to the
right had the unclean and stupid farmer, whose farm abutted on this
for many a year there will be no more rambling through the aisles of
never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked God that He had made it.
ripple the surface. One November afternoon, in the calm at the end
the works of man shine as in the spring. Ay, every leaf and twig
are no suckers nor lampreys here, I know not by what fish they could
was twenty-five feet deep. Out of curiosity, I lay down on the ice
shore by short impulses till they completely cover it. It is a
the lake, on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps from time to
by two diverging lines, but the skaters glide over it without
It is earths eye; looking into which the beholder measures the
surface critically, it is literally as smooth as glass, except where
There are few traces of mans hand to be seen. The water laves the
lakes receive as true names at least as the Icarian Sea, where
beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern
you slowly raise, pulling hand over hand, some horned pout squeaking
obliged to pile them up in walls on both sides of the railroad cut
I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and
and a part of two falls, and I expect that a dozen or fifteen years
pickerel, though not abundant, are its chief boast. I have seen at
earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and
of October, when the severe frosts have come; and then and in
There have been caught in Walden pickerel, one weighing seven
high into the heavens as the pond now sinks deep into the earth, and
"In the middle of the latter may be seen, when the water is very
the pond was remarkably smooth, so that it was difficult to
to raise the echoes by striking with a paddle on the side of my
change is in me. It has not acquired one permanent wrinkle after
deep water, many rods from the shore. It was even supposed by some
day, year in year out, they grind such grist as I carry to them.
firmer-fleshed than those in the river and most other ponds, as the
that the pond had sunk, and this was one of the primitive forest
light mixed with it, it appears at a little distance of a darker
after practising various kinds of philosophy, had concluded
promises. The shiners, pouts, and perch also, and indeed all the
thither from the countrys hills.
This is that portion, also, where in the spring, the ice being
distance a fish describes an arc of three or four feet in the air,
No, no; if the fairest features of the landscape are to be named
willed, having paddled my boat to the middle, and lying on my back
down into the pond, were quenched with a loud hissing, and we were
strung on a thread, and when we had done, far in the night, threw
them. There are also a clean race of frogs and tortoises, and a few
kinds: a long and shallow one, steel-colored, most like those caught
dimpling the surface with their tails in the moonlight, and
after a light snow has fallen, appearing as a clear undulating white
canoe, which took the place of an Indian one of the same material
brazen face; who regarded even the wild ducks which settled in it as
top of a pitch pine, of the kind called yellow pine hereabouts,
I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of
market cart, and they become mere provender. As long as Eternal
pond, needs only bury a pail of water a few feet deep in the shade
half an inch long, and they are produced only at one season of the
an hour, when I was younger, floating over its surface as the zephyr
shrubs and trees which have sprung up about its edge since the last
Flints Pond! Such is the poverty of our nomenclature. What
low, a tree which appears as if it grew in the place where it now
Some have been puzzled to tell how the shore became so regularly
encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have elapsed
in a calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite
for that. They are similar to those found in rivers; but as there
with small dark brown or black spots, intermixed with a few faint
between. The forest has never so good a setting, nor is so
green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a
said to contain one hundred and ninety-seven acres, and is more
either solid grass, or have a little sand in the middle. At first
a muckheap, chambers for men horses, oxen, and swine, cleansed and
engaged the hill shook and suddenly sank, and only one old squaw,
but, with its winding shore, the most natural and agreeable boundary
than I habitually dwell, into yet more unfrequented parts of the
know. It is commonly higher in the winter and lower in the summer,
and assuaged, as, when a vase of water is jarred, the trembling
at Walden, in sultry dog-day weather, looking down through the woods
it, you may see, many feet beneath the surface, the schools of perch
bottom, and that he had seen it. Sometimes it would come floating
sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark
level, at the outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed
and squirming to the upper air. It was very queer, especially in
was not English hay or cranberry meadow -- there was nothing to
dry under it to the opposite hills, and that the swallows which skim
as you looked down from the west end, it had the appearance of an
existence, and even then breaking up in a gentle spring rain
dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal
the shore, where the water was thirty or forty feet deep. It was in
its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.
though it is not a distinct species, projecting above the surface in
progressing over the smooth surface a quarter of a mile off; for
forest mirror, set round with stones as precious to my eye as if
pipewort perhaps, from half an inch to four inches in diameter, and
long habit of grasping harpy-like; -- so it is not named for me. I
commonly, by the time I arrived, that he belonged to the ancient
people tell me that they heard it in their youth -- that anciently
produces a flash of light; and if an oar falls, how sweet the echo!
continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is
be ascetic fish that find a subsistence there. Once, in the winter,
northern, and the beautifully scalloped southern shore, where
mystery to me. I detect the paver. If the name was not derived
or glaucous color. Many years since I used to go there to collect
which had their dwelling forty feet below, or sometimes dragging
men! As if you were to raise your potatoes in the churchyard! Such
Occasionally, after my hoeing was done for the day, I joined
The scenery of Walden is on a humble scale, and, though very
Rather let it be named from the fishes that swim in it, the wild
rushes; yet its model was sharply defined, as if it were a large
its shores, or some wild man or child the thread of whose history is
tints of October, but the sombre November colors of the surrounding
does not detect a flag nor a bulrush, nor even a lily, yellow or
It is no dream of mine,
named Walden, escaped, and from her the pond was named. It has been
all.
water is purer, and they can easily be distinguished from them.
with his foot, and he it is that has browsed off all the woods on
rising to the surface and dimpling it, sometimes leaving bubbles on
great distance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are
remarkably deep, which is the most common here; and another,
since they grew on her three hills. The ambrosial and essential
contains about sixty-one and a half acres; a perennial spring in the
up to the shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back into
with dew in a spring morning. Every motion of an oar or an insect
over might perch on it. Indeed, they sometimes dive below this
than when I lived there, or as high as it was thirty years ago, and
also, I have a faint recollection of a little fish some five inches
as an equal quantity of air. It is well known that a large plate of
midst of pine and oak woods, without any visible inlet or outlet
We have one other pond just like this, White Pond, in Nine Acre
of ducks and geese, which had not heard of the fall, when still such