The sound of a saw

Am gaining ever more appreciation of Thoreau's use of language by way of the Thoreau blog, for which today's excerpt records the felling of a giant pine tree. Thoreau greets the sight with both acceptance and sorrow for the loss of the great trees from his woods. This passage particularly struck me:

How slowly and majestic it starts! as it were only swayed by a summer breeze, and would return without a sigh to its location in the air. And now it fans the hillside with its fall, and it lies down to its bed in the valley, from which it is never to rise, as softly as a feather, folding its green mantle about it like a warrior, as if, tired of standing, it embraced the earth with silent joy, returning its elements to the dust again. But hark! there you only saw, but did not hear. There now comes up a deafening crash to these rocks, advertising you that even trees do not die without a groan.