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