I remember that, when first reading it, being then little past boyhood myself, how much I was struck by the vivid beautiful description of a crowd of young lambs challenging each other to a game, especially at a spot where they have a mound or hillock for a playground which takes them with a sort of goatlike joyous madness.

For how often in those days I used to ride out to where the flock of one to two thousand sheep were scattered on the plain, to sit on my pony and watch the glad romps of the little lambs with keenest delight! I cannot but think that Bloomfield's fidelity to nature in such pictures as these does or should count for something in considering his work.

He concludes:-- Adown the slope, then up the hillock climb, Where every mole-hill is a bed of thyme, Then panting stop; yet scarcely can refrain; A bird, a leaf, will set them off again; Or if a gale with strength unusual blow, Scattering the wild-briar roses into snow, Their little limbs increasing efforts try, Like a torn rose the fair assemblage fly.
This image of the wind-scattered petals of the wild rose reminds him bitterly of the destined end of these joyous young lives--his white-fleeced little fellow-mortals.

He sees the murdering butcher coming in his cart to demand the firstlings of the flock; he cannot suppress a cry of grief and indignation--he can only strive to shut out the shocking image from his soul! "Summer" opens with some reflections on the farmer's life in a prosy Crabbe-like manner; and here it may be noted that as a rule Bloomfield no sooner attempts to rise to a general view than he grows flat; and in like manner he usually fails when he attempts wide prospects and large effects.

He is at his best only 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.