I hate the sawmill’s greedy whine As it slaughters a bleeding pine, And fear the ugly saw that chews Its way into a tree's sinews.
I flinch on seeing the bones all piled Out in the yard, naked, defiled, And dread the whistle’s cry for more As tree-butchers remove the gore.
It is sad to think how callously My fellowman can slay a tree. Alas, that home of birds and breeze Should suffer such indignities.
Johnson looks at a sawmill and sees an abattoir. The title sets up the comparison, and the poem keeps it going: the pine is "slaughtered" and "bleeding," the saw "chews" through the tree's "sinews," and the logs in the yard become piled "bones," stripped and "defiled." Even the workers are "tree-butchers" who clear away the "gore." By borrowing the language of animal slaughter, the speaker asks us to feel for trees the way we would for living creatures.
The speaker's feelings are clear and strong: hate, fear, flinching, dread, and finally sadness. Each stanza adds a layer, moving from the noise of the machinery to the sight of the yard to a broader reflection on human callousness. The last lines turn from the mill itself to what is lost, a "home of birds and breeze." The tone is mournful and a little old-fashioned, helped by the tidy rhymed couplets, which make the lament sound like quiet, steady grief.