To White Pond to sound it.

March 11.

That dull-gray-barked willow shows the silvery down of its forthcoming catkins. I believe that I saw blackbirds yesterday. The ice in the pond is soft on the surface, but it is still more than a foot thick. Is that slender green weed which I draw up on my sounding-stone where it is forty feet deep and upward Nitella gracillis (allied to Chara), described in Loudon?


The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. Is it not time that I ceased to sing? My groves are invaded.


Water that has been so long detained on the hills and uplands by frost is now rapidly finding its level in the ocean. All lakes without outlet are oceans, larger or smaller.


H. D. Thoreau, Journal, March 11, 1852

The woods I walked in in my youth are cut off. See January 21, 1852 ("This winter they are cutting down our woods more seriously than ever,--Fair Haven hill, Walden, Linnaea, Borealis Wood, etc., etc. Thank God, they cannot cut down the clouds!")

Water is now rapidly finding its level in the ocean. See April 14, 1852 ("The streams break up; the ice goes to the sea. Then sails the fish hawk overhead, looking for his prey.")