We glided noiselessly down the stream, occasionally driving a pickerel from the covert of the pads Åc the smaller bittern now and then sailed away on sluggish wings from some recess in the shore, or the larger lifted itself out of the long grass at our approach, and carried its precious legs away to drop them in a place of safetyÅcas our boat ruffled the surface amid the willows breaking the reflection of the trees. The banks had passed the height of their beauty, and some of the brighter flowers showed by their faded tints that the season was verging toward the afternoon of the year; but this somber tinge enhanced their sincerity, and in the still unabated heats they seemed like the mossy brink of some cool well.

(A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Henry David Thoreau 1839)