Hurt Hawks Man and the Natural World Quotes

You heard it. He cares more for the wild predator than his own species. Good thing there are laws (penalties) or some heads might have rolled. This is a pretty radical statement. Most people put humans at the top of the pyramid, but not this speaker. This makes what he has to do all the more awesome (in the old sense of the word).

A gift? Is the hawk thinking, "oh you shouldn't have?" This killing is made to sound both direct (look at all those single syllables) and, well, poetic. "Lead gift" is a euphemism for the shot that kills this bird. And doesn't everything seem nicer if it happens at twilight? After the build-up, after knowing that the speaker would sooner kill a man than do this act, he now makes it a gift. The hawk had been asking for it (not begging, though!). What else had given? Freedom, the speaker says. This is the final liberation.