Thoreau writes in his journal:
To Conantum via fields, Hubbard’s Grove, and grain-field, to Tupelo Cliff and Conantum and returning over peak same way. 6 P.M. . . . At Tupelo Cliff I hear the sound of singers on the river, young men and women,—which is unusual here,—returning from their row . . . Lower down I see the moon in the water as bright as in the heavens; only the water-bugs disturb its disk; and now I catch a faint glassy glare from the whole river surface, which before was simply dark . . . I see the northern lights over my shoulder, to remind me of the Esquimaux and that they are still my contemporaries on this globe, that they too are taking their walks on another part of the planet, in pursuit western horizon where the sun has disappeared, and alternating with beautiful blue rays, more blue by far than any other portion of the sky . . . The northern lights now, as I descend from the Conantum house, have become a crescent of light crowned with short, shooting flames,—or the shadows of flames, for sometimes they are dark as well as white.
