Ossian Collection > Aspects of poetry

XIL] 'THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE: 371
Writing to a friend at the time of its publication, he
says : —
' The White Doe will be acceptable to the intelligent, for whom
alone it is written. It starts from a high point of imagination,
and comes round, through various wanderings of that faculty, to
a still higher — nothing less than the apotheosis of the animal who
gives the title to the poem. And as the poem begins and ends
with fine and lofty imagination, every motive and impetus that
actuates the persons introduced is from the same source ; a kin-
dred spirit pervades and is intended to harmonise the whole.
Throughout, objects (the banner, for instance) derive their influ-
ence, not from properties inherent in them, not from what they
actually are in themselves, but from such qualities as are bestowed
on them by the minds of those who are conversant with or affected
by those objects. Thus the poetry, if there be any in the work,
proceeds, as it ought to do, from the soul of man, communicating
its creative energies to the images of the external world.'
Such accounts in sober prose of what he aimed at in
poetry, are valuable as coming from the poet himself ;
especially so in the case of Wordsworth, who, though
he composed, as all poets must do, under the power of
emotion and creative impulse, was yet able afterwards
to reflect on the emotion that possessed him, and lay
his finger on the aim that actuated him, as few poets
have been able to do. Some have adduced this as a
proof that it was not the highest kind of inspiration by
which Wordsworth was impelled, for such, they say, is
unconscious, and can give little or no account of itself.
Without going into this question, there is no doubt that
Wordsworth had reflected on the workings of imagi-
nation more, and could describe them better, than
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