pomp, and it is obvious upon what points in the action Scott would have
laid the emphasis; the muster of the tenantry of the great northern
Catholic houses of Percy and Neville; the high mass celebrated by the
insurgents in Durham Cathedral; the march of the Nortons to Brancepeth;
the eleven days' siege of Barden Tower; the capture and execution of
Marmaduke and Ambrose; and--by way of episode--the Battle of Neville's
Cross in 1346.[19] But in conformity to the principle announced in the
preface to the "Lyrical Ballads"--that the feeling should give importance
to the incidents and situation, not the incidents and situation to the
feeling--Wordsworth treats all this outward action as merely preparatory
to the true purpose of his poem, a study of the discipline of sorrow, of
ruin and bereavement patiently endured by the Lady Emily, the only
daughter and survivor of the Norton house.

"Action is transitory--a step, a blow. . . .
Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And has the nature of infinity.
Yet through that darkness (infinite though it seem
And irremoveable) gracious openings lie. . . .
Even to the fountain-head of peace divine."

With the story of the Nortons the poet connects a local tradition which
he found in Whitaker's "History of the Deanery of Craven"; of a white doe
which haunted the churchyard of Bolton Priory. Between this gentle
creature and the forlorn Lady of Rylstone he establishes the mysterious
and soothing sympathy which he was always fond of imagining between the
soul of man and the things of nature.[20]

Or take again the "Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle," an incident in
the Wars of the Roses. Lord Clifford, who had been hidden away in