THOREAU'S WALDEN 73 



posite shore, and with a flash the mystery of the 

 place returned. The cove where it burned seemed 

 infinitely far withdrawn, and about it stalked 

 shadowy giants who were the fishermen. Their 

 voices, coming in brief sentences and at long 

 intervals, were as weird as their shadows and 

 as unsubstantial, from that immense distance to 

 which they seemed withdrawn. The whole was a 

 mystery of the elder earth, as if man had fished 

 here before the flood and came, a shade among the 

 shadows, to try it again. 



By and by the fishing fire ceased to flare and 

 sank to a red glow of embers. The dense clouds, 

 tempest-drawn toward distant skies, dropped 

 southward. The moon rode out of them and all 

 dignity and crystal beauty returned to the pond, 

 no longer little but wide and deep and mysterious. 

 Down the moon's radiance a spirit of fire strode, 

 walking the water along a path of golden light, 

 right into Thoreau's cove as I sat there on his 

 shore. The pond was once again a well of crystal, 

 now leading from the zenith to the nadir, and the) 

 white radiance of its spirit made mountain peaks 

 of snow-white grandeur of the receding clouds. 



