when describing scenes and incidents
at the farm in which he himself is a chief actor, as in this part when,
after the sowing of the turnip seed, he is sent out to keep the small
birds from the ripening corn:

There thousands in a flock, for ever gay,
Loud chirping sparrows welcome on the day,
And from the mazes of the leafy thorn
Drop one by one upon the bending corn.

Giles trudging along the borders of the field scares them with his
brushing-pole, until, overcome by fatigue and heat, he takes a rest by
the brakes and lying, half in sun and half in shade, his attention is
attracted to the minute insect life that swarms about him:

The small dust-coloured beetle climbs with pain
O'er the smooth plantain leaf, a spacious plain!
Then higher still by countless steps conveyed,
He gains the summit of a shivering blade,
And flirts his filmy wings and looks around,
Exulting in his distance from the ground.

It is one of his little exquisite pictures. Presently his vision is
called to the springing lark:

Just starting from the corn, he cheerly sings,
And trusts with conscious pride his downy wings;
Still louder breathes, and in the face of day
Mounts up and calls on Giles to mark his way.
Close to his eye his hat he instant bends
And forms a friendly telescope that lends
Just aid enough to dull the glaring light
And place the wandering bird before his sight,
That oft beneath a light cloud sweeps along;
Lost for a while yet pours a varied song;
The eye still follows and the cloud moves by,
Again he stretches up the clear blue sky,
His form, his motions, undistinguished quite,
Save when he wheels direct from shade to light.

In the end he falls asleep, and waking refreshed picks up his poles and
starts again brushing round.

Harvesting scenes succeed, with a picture of Mary, the village beauty,
taking her share in the work, and how the labourers in their unwonted
liveliness and new-found wit

Confess the presence of a pretty face.

She is very rustic herself in her appearance:--

Her hat awry, divested of her gown,
Her creaking stays of leather, stout and brown:
Invidious barrier! why art thou so high,
When the slight covering of her neck slips by,
Then half revealing to the eager sight
Her full, ripe bosom, exquisitely white?

The leather stays have no doubt gone the way of many other dreadful
things, eve