The Log-Cock ii 
In the early winter mornings, 
Ere the crossbills leave the pine woods, 
Ere the grosbeaks seek the ash seeds, 
Ere the red polls find the birch buds. 
Ere the titmouse calls his Phoebe ; 
While the red fox still is prowling. 
While the partridge still is budding. 
Just before the sun comes stealing 
Upwards from the Bearcamp meadows, 
You may hear the log-cock working 
In the glens below Chocorua, 
In the forests north of Paugus, 
On the slopes of Passaconway. 
Hammer blows on hollow tree-trunks. 
Blows which echo from the mountains. 
Strikes he with his nervous chisel. 
Chips are flying all around him. 
Chips ^ are piling high below him, 
Still his blows fall fast and earnest, 
Still the cliffs and woods repeat them. 
1 The writer, attracted by a pile of chips on the snow, 
once found a hole in a hemlock trunk recently dug by a 
pileated woodpecker, from which 268 cubic inches of 
wood had been removed. 
