There was nothing but she.

June 19.

The other day I rowed in my boat a free, even lovely young lady, and, as I plied the oars, she sat in the stern, and there was nothing but she between me and the sky.

Ellen Sewall

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, June 19, 1840

See  October 27, 1851 ("She who was as the morning light to me is now neither the morning star nor the evening star.");  See also To the Maiden in the East from The Dial (October 1842) and A Week:

On this same stream a maiden once sailed in my boat, thus unattended but by invisible guardians, and as she sat in the prow there was nothing but herself between the steersman and the sky. I could then say with the poet: 

"Sweet falls the summer air
Over her frame who sails with me;
Her way like that is beautifully free,
Her nature far more rare,
And is her constant heart of virgin purity."

At evening still the very stars seem but this maiden's emissaries and reporters of her progress. 

Low in the eastern sky 

Is set thy glancing eye; 

And though its gracious light 

Ne'er riseth to my sight 

Yet every star that climbs 

Above the gnarled limbs 

          Of yonder hill, 

Conveys thy gentle will.

 
Believe I knew thy thought, 

And that the zephyrs brought 

Thy kindest wishes through, 

As mine they bear to you, 

That some attentive cloud 

Did pause amid the crowd 

          Over my head, 

While gentle things were said.

 
Believe the thrushes sung, 

And that the flower bells rung, 

That herbs exhaled their scent, 

And beasts knew what was meant, 

The trees a welcome waved, 

And lakes their margins laved, 

          When thy free mind 

To my retreat did wind.

 
It was a summer eve, 

The air did gently heave, 

While yet a low hung cloud 

Thy eastern skies did shroud; 

The lightning's silent gleam, 

Startling my drowsy dream, 

          Seemed like the flash

Under thy dark eyelash.

 
Still will I strive to be 

As if thou wert with me; 

Whatever path I take, 

It shall be for thy sake, 

Of gentle slope and wide 

As thou wert by my side, 

          Without a root 

To trip thy gentle foot .

 
I'll walk with gentle pace, 

And choose the smoothest place, 

And careful dip the oar 

And shun the winding shore, 

And gently steer my boat 

Where water lilies float 

          And cardinal flowers 

Stand in their sylvan bower.

"I have always loved her." ~ HDT to his sister Sophia, as quoted  in 1962 by Ellen Sewell''s daughter,, Louise Osgood Koopman  in . "The Thoreau Romance".