the sheep are pictured, with all a shepherd's delightful affection, coming back at evening to the folding; and, with David's poetic imagination, compared to the stars following one another into the meadows of night-- And now one after one seeks his lodging, as star follows star Into eve and the blue far above us,--so blue and so far!-- In verse vi.

the quails, and the crickets, and the jerboa at the door of his sand house, are thrilled into quicker life by David's music.

In verse ix.

the full joy of living in beasts and men is painted in the midst of landscape after landscape, struck out in single lines,--till all nature seems crowded and simmering with the intense life whose rapture Browning loved so well.

These fully reveal his poetic communion with animals.