Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/79

Rh already half divested it of its branches. Its gracefully spreading top was a perfect wreck on the hillside, as if it had been made of glass, and the tender cones of one year s growth upon its summit appealed in vain and too late to the mercy of the chopper. Already he has measured it with his axe, and marked off the small logs it will make. It is lumber. When the fish hawk in the spring revisits the banks of the Musketaquid, he will circle in vain to find his accustomed perch, and the hen hawk will mourn for the pines lofty enough to protect his brood. I hear no knell tolled, I see no procession of mourners in the streets or the woodland aisles. The squirrel has leaped to another tree, the hawk has circled farther off, and has now settled upon a new eyrie, but the woodman is preparing to lay his axe at the root of that also.

Dec. 30, 1853. In winter every man is, to a slight extent, dormant, just as some animals are but partially awake, though not commonly classed with those that hibernate. The summer circulations are to some extent stopped, the range of his afternoon walk is somewhat narrower, he is more or less confined to the highway and woodpath; the weather oftener shuts him up in his burrow, he begins to feel the access of dormancy, and to assume the spherical form of the marmot, the nights are longest, he