They are indeed inside the
house, but by accident or for temporary shelter. They do not, as the
phrase goes, belong to the scheme, for they are direct transcriptions of
the common reality, whether found in the sensible world or the emotion
of the mind. They are, from Mr Yeats's angle of vision (as indeed from
our own), essentially _vers d'occasion._
[Footnote 3: _The Wild Swans at Coole_. By W.B. Yeats.(Macmillan.)]
The poet's high and passionate argument must be sought elsewhere, and
precisely in his expression of his convictions about the world. And
here, on the poet's word and the evidence of our search, we shall find
phantasmagoria, ghostly symbols of a truth which cannot be otherwise
conveyed, at least by Mr Yeats. To this, in itself, we make no demur.
The poet, if he is a true poet, is driven to approach the highest
reality he can apprehend. He cannot transcribe it simply because he does
not possess the necessary apparatus of knowledge, and because if he did
possess it his passion would flag.
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