THE PONDS# 
209 
try’s champion, the Moore of Moore Hall, to meet him 
at the Deep Cut and thrust an avenging lance between 
the ribs of the bloated pest ? 
Nevertheless, of all the characters I have known, 
perhaps Walden wears best, and best preserves its pu¬ 
rity, Many men have been likened to it, but few de¬ 
serve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have laid 
bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have 
built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on 
its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is 
itself unchanged, the same water which my youthful 
eyes fell on; all the change is in me. It has not ac¬ 
quired one permanent wrinkle after all its ripples. It 
is perennially young, and I may stand and see a swallow 
dip apparently to pick an insect from its surface as of 
yore. It struck me again to-night, as if I had not seen 
it almost daily for more than twenty years, — Why, here 
is Walden, the same woodland lake that I discovered so 
many years ago; where a forest was cut down last win¬ 
ter another is springing up by its shore as lustily as 
ever; the same thought is welling up to its surface that 
was then; it is the same liquid joy and happiness to it¬ 
self and its Maker, ay, and it may be to me. It is the 
work of a brave man surely, in whom there was no 
guile! He rounded this water with his hand, deepened 
and clarified it in his thought, and in his will bequeathed 
it to Concord. I see by its face that it is visited by the 
same reflection; and I can almost say, Walden, is it you ? 
It is no dream of mine, 
To ornament a line; 
I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven 
Than I live to Walden even. 
I am its stony shore, 
And the breeze that passes o’er; 
14 
