"While slowly o'er the hills
The unnerved day piles his prodigious sunshine.
Here be gardens of Hesperian mould,
Recesses rare, temples of tirch and fern,
Perfumes of light-green sumac, ivy thick,
And old stone fences tottering to their fall,
And gleaming lakes that cool invite the bath,
And most aerial mountains for the West."
10 Walden with May, who takes a pencil sketch for her collection. Thoreau's hermitage has disappeared, and the grounds are overgrown with pines and sumac, leaving the site hardly traceable. The shores of Walden are as sylvan as ever near Thoreau's haunt, but have been shorn of wood on the southern side. No spot of water in these parts has a more interesting history. It well deserved the poet's praises while
Thoreau dwelt on its shores.
"It is not far beyond the village church,
After we pass the wood that skirts the road,
A lake, the blue-eyed Walden,
Most tenderly upon its neighbor pines,
And they as if to recompense this love,
In double beauty spread their branches forth.
This lake has tranquil loveliness and breadth,
And of late years has added to its charms,
For one attracted to its pleasant edge
Has built himself a little hermitage,
Where with much picty he passes life.
"More fitting place I cannot fancy now,
For such a man to let the line run off
The mortal reel, such patience hath the lake,
Such gratitude and cheer are in the pines.
But more than either lake or forest's depths
This man has in himself: a tranquil man,
With sunny sides where well the fruit is ripe,
Good front, and resolute bearing to this life,
And some serener virtues, which control
This rich exterior prudence, virtues high,
That in the principles of things are set,
Great by their nature and consigned to him,
Who, like a faithful merchant, does account
To God for what he spends, and in what way.
"Thrice happy art thou, Walden! in thyself,
Such purity is in thy limpid springs;
In those green shores which do reflect in thee,
And in this man who dwells upon thy edge,
A holy man within a hermitage.
May all good showers fall gently into thee;
May thy surrounding forests long be spared,
And may the dweller on thy tranquil shores
Here lead a life of deep tranquillity,
Pure as thy waters, handsome as thy shores,
And with those virtues which are like the stars.”
"When I first paddled a boat on Walden," wrote Thoreau, "it was completely surrounded by thick and lofty pine and oak woods, and in some spots, coves of grape vines had run over the trees and formed bowers under which a boat could pass. The hills which form its shore are so steep, and the woods on them so high,
|