"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
The battled towers, the donjon keep..."
Norham! I stumbled across this imposing pile a few years ago while exploring the Tweed. It struck me as a very practical castle; not somewhere you would fight a tournament, but somewhere you would fight. In the first stanza we're told of captives weeping in the dungeon, which sets the tone: despite the lazy breeze and the sagging flag, the slow sunset and idly humming watchman, this is a frontier outpost under constant threat of invasion. Marmion's bugle-blast breaks the peace and plunges us towards the action of the poem.
Scott liked his visual setpieces. Norham Castle is one, painted by Turner below. Lord Marmion is another. We don't need to know all this about his charger, his charger's rein, or indeed his charger's mane, but Scott likes to illustrate. Why not? If you don't have the internet - if you don't have another book to follow - then you want vivid images to savour for as long as possible. You might not have a picture of a medieval lord on hand, so Scott gives you one through text.
My pet theory is that this is what makes Marmion difficult. You're not just reading a poem; you're looking at a moving picture.
Pause and paint the canvas on your mind, then continue on, the world a little brighter...
