We sit by the side of Little Goose Pond, which C. calls Ripple Lake or Pool, to watch the ripples on it.
Watching the ripples fall and dash across the surface of low-lying and small woodland lakes is one of the amusements of these windy March and April days.
Ripple Lake is now nearly smooth. Then the wind drops down spreading along and making a dark-blue ripple.
Now four or five windy bolts, sharp or blunt, strike it at once and spread different ways. Often the wind touches the water only by the finest points or edges.
You could sit there and watch these blue shadows playing over the surface like the light and shade on changeable silk, for hours. Looking down from a hillside partly from the sun, these points and dashes look dark-blue, almost black.
Standing low and more opposite to the sun, then all these dark-blue ripples are all sparkles too bright to look at.
Water agitated by the wind is both far brighter and far darker than smooth water.
H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1859
Watching the ripples fall and dash across the surface of low-lying and small woodland lakes is one of the amusements of these windy March and April days.
Ripple Lake is now nearly smooth. Then the wind drops down spreading along and making a dark-blue ripple.
Now four or five windy bolts, sharp or blunt, strike it at once and spread different ways. Often the wind touches the water only by the finest points or edges.
You could sit there and watch these blue shadows playing over the surface like the light and shade on changeable silk, for hours. Looking down from a hillside partly from the sun, these points and dashes look dark-blue, almost black.
Standing low and more opposite to the sun, then all these dark-blue ripples are all sparkles too bright to look at.
Water agitated by the wind is both far brighter and far darker than smooth water.
H.D. Thoreau, Journal, April 9, 1859
[for the full entry of this date see We played with the north winds here before ye were born.]
Watching the ripples fall and dash across the surface of low-lying and small woodland lakes is one of the amusements of these windy March and April days. See March 2, 1860 ("The great phenomenon these days is the sparkling blue water, — a richer blue than the sky ever is. The flooded meadows are ripple lakes on a large scale. . . . These are ripple days begun, — not yet in woodland pools, where is ice yet. "); March 9, 1860 (“March began warm, and I admired the ripples made by the gusts on the dark-blue meadow flood, and the light-tawny color of the earth, and was on the alert to hear the first birds.”); March 14, 1860 ("I see some dark ripples already drop and sweep over the surface of [Walden], as they will ere long over Ripple Lake and other pools in the wood."); April 15, 1860 ("Ripples spread fan-like over Fair Haven Pond, from Lee's Cliff, as over Ripple Lake."); April 21, 1859 ("This Ripple Lake with the wind playing over it,. . . this play of ripples which reflect the sky,-- a darker blue than the real"); April 29, 1859 ("There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake.")
Watching the ripples fall and dash across the surface of low-lying and small woodland lakes is one of the amusements of these windy March and April days. See March 2, 1860 ("The great phenomenon these days is the sparkling blue water, — a richer blue than the sky ever is. The flooded meadows are ripple lakes on a large scale. . . . These are ripple days begun, — not yet in woodland pools, where is ice yet. "); March 9, 1860 (“March began warm, and I admired the ripples made by the gusts on the dark-blue meadow flood, and the light-tawny color of the earth, and was on the alert to hear the first birds.”); March 14, 1860 ("I see some dark ripples already drop and sweep over the surface of [Walden], as they will ere long over Ripple Lake and other pools in the wood."); April 15, 1860 ("Ripples spread fan-like over Fair Haven Pond, from Lee's Cliff, as over Ripple Lake."); April 21, 1859 ("This Ripple Lake with the wind playing over it,. . . this play of ripples which reflect the sky,-- a darker blue than the real"); April 29, 1859 ("There is a time to watch the ripples on Ripple Lake.")
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