hid in the white warm cloud
Mantling the thorn.
Whether I am right or wrong as to the process of his development, the fact remains that he can be, if he chooses, a master in language of poetic simplicity. Even a fire of garden rubbish can be expressed without becoming altogether unpoetical when one speaks of
the spicy smoke
Of withered weeds that burn where gardens be.
Perhaps there do exist some things which cannot be made poetical in any diction whatsoever. Tennyson could only express "tea" by "and on the board the fluttering urn," and if Mr. Davidson has to speak of whisky and calls it
amber spirit that enshrines the heart
Of an old Lothian summer,
we have to recognise that he has come very well out of a difficulty. If at another time he refers to it as
things which journalists require,
we must remember that the context implies a certain humour.
"Clear, but not flat," is an easy maxim to utter, but, as Wordsworth too often shows, the danger of falling from studied simplicity into bald prose is always present; and for that reason do smaller artists rather choose to trick their thoughts in verbal jewellery. We cannot say that Davidson, who undertakes to run the risk, never makes the fatal step. In the address to the daisy—
Oh, little brave adventurer!
We human beings love you so,