As the groundhog goes through its own metamorphosis, the speaker experiences a transmutation, which affects his emotions and actions towards the animal corpse.
The orator's world was like Eden, bursting in all of its heaven-like beauty. However, the rotting presence of the corpse lying there aloofly greatly impacted him. The groundhog is a disturbance within the norms of the speaker's world. His "senses shook" at the site of the decaying entity. It perturbed him to see something dying amidst so much life and vigor. …
