He went down
As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs,
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,
And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

The lines figure a man’s fall—most likely death or defeat—as the felling of a “lordly cedar.” The simile stresses both grandeur and suddenness: the tree is “green with boughs” (full of life and stature) yet it “goes down with a great shout,” suggesting a dramatic, public collapse rather than a quiet fading. The final image—“a lonesome place against the sky”—captures the aftermath: absence becomes visible, and the landscape (or community) is permanently altered by the loss. The passage thus elegizes not only the fallen figure but also the void left behind, turning personal tragedy into a stark, natural emblem.