two years, and now, in the summer of '52, is just five feet higher than
when I lived there, or as high as it was thirty years ago, and fishing
goes on again in the meadow. This makes a difference of level, at the
outside, of six or seven feet; and yet the water shed by the surrounding
hills is insignificant in amount, and this overflow must be referred to
causes which affect the deep springs. This same summer the pond has
begun to fall again. It is remarkable that this fluctuation, whether
periodical or not, appears thus to require many years for its
accomplishment. I have observed one rise and a part of two falls, and I
expect that a dozen or fifteen years hence the water will again be as
low as I have ever known it. Flint's Pond, a mile eastward, allowing
for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlets, and the
smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and recently
attained their greatest height at the same time with the latter. The
same is true, as far as my observation goes, of White Pond.

This rise and fall of Walden at long intervals serves this use at least:
the water standing at this great height for a year or more, though it
makes it difficult to walk round it, kills the shrubs and trees which
have sprung up about its edge since the last rise, pitch-pines, birches,
alders, aspens, and others, and, falling again, leaves an unobstructed
shore; for, unlike many ponds, and all waters which are subject to a
daily tide, its shore is cleanest when the water is lowest. On the side
of the pond next my house, a row of pitch-pines fifteen feet high has
been killed and tipped over as if by a lever, and thus a stop put to
their encroachments; and their size indicates how many years have
elapsed since the last rise to this height. By this fluctuation the pond
asserts its title to a shore, and thus the _shore_ is _shorn_, and the
trees cannot hold it by right of possession. These are the lips of the
lake on which no beard grows. It licks its chaps from time to time. When