Of all the Fugitive poets who were writing and publishing verse from Nashville forty years ago, it is Donald Davidson who seems to have maintained continuity and development most steadily in his art…. It is Davidson who is most loyal to the old Southern way of life to which four of them [Tate, Ransom, Warren, and Davidson] gave allegiance in their Agrarian phase. His devotion is uncompromising; it is dangerously close to exclusive….

The title of Davidson's book [The Long Street] seems to be a key phrase to denote the culture which he is fighting. The Long Street is his image of the Southern industrial development, which was not stayed by the Agrarian agitation. (p. 202)

Other fine poems here are available for the critic's notice. But at least two are of extraordinary originality. They are fantasies, and it will be to the reader's advantage to explore and ponder...