Wide as a subst. is hardly recognized. Tennyson is quoted, 'The waste wide of that abyss', but as waste is a recognized substantive the authority is uncertain.
In the above examples we have taken such words as best answered our purpose, neglecting many which have almost equal claims. The richness of the vocabulary in unusual words and in words carrying unusual meanings forbids complete examination; as will be seen by a rough classification of some of those which we have passed over.
To begin with the words which our author uses well, we will quote as an example all the passages in which writhe occurs. The transitive verb which is perhaps in danger of neglect is very valuable, and it is well employed. These passages will also fully exhibit the general quality of Mr. Blunden's diction.
'But no one loves the aguish mist
That writhes its way at eventide
Along the copse's waterside'. (3)
'But now the sower's hand is writhed
In livid death '. (25)
'To-morrow's brindled shouting storms with flood
The purblind hollows with a leaden rain
And flat the gleaning-fields to choking mud
And writhe the groaning woods with bursts of pain'. (42)
'The lispering aspens and the scarfed brook-grasses
With wakened melancholy writhe the air'. (53)
Dimpling is well and poetically used in
'While the woodlark's dimpling rings
In the dim air climb'. (21)
and also quag (verb) (2), seething (3), channelled (9), bunch (11), jungled (11), rout (verb) (12), fluster (13), byre (13), plash (shallow water) (19), tantalise (neut. v.) (36), hutched (43), flounce (44), rootle (45), shore (verb) (59). Lair (verb) (43) does not seem a useful word.
Next, words somewhat obscurely or fancifully used are starving (1), stark (10), honeycomb (15), cobbled (of pattens) (16), lanterned (24), well (49), bergomask (for village country dances?) (25), belvedere (of the spider's watch tower) (26).
While the following seem to us incorrectly used: mumbling (23) used of wings; the word is confined to the mouth whether as a manner of eating or of speaking: crunch (28) where the frosts crunch the grass: whereas they only make it crunchable. maligns (54) used as a neuter verb without precedent, chinked (58) of light passing through a chink: and note the homophone chink, used of sound. And then the line
'The blackthorns clung with heapen sloes' (55)