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;
In the hollow of my hand
Are its water and its sand,
And its deepest resort
Lies high in my thought.
The cars never pause to look at it; yet I fancy that the engineers and
firemen and brakemen, and those passengers who have a season ticket and
see it often, are better men for the sight. The engineer does not forget
at night, or his nature does not, that he has beheld this vision of
serenity and purity once at least during the day. Though seen but once,
it helps to wash out State-street and the engine's soot. One proposes
that it be called "God's Drop."
I have said that Walden has no visible inlet or outlet, but it is on the
one hand distantly and indirectly related to Flint's Pond, which is more
elevated, by a chain of small ponds coming from that quarter, and on the
other directly and manifestly to Concord River, which is lower, by a
similar chain of ponds through which in some other geological period it
may have flowed; and by a little digging, which God forbid, it can be
made to flow thither again.
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