Nor waving crops, nor leaf, nor flowers adorn
Thy sides, deserted Crockern. Over thee
The winds have ever held dominion ; thou
Art still their heritage, and fierce they sweep
Thy solitary hill what time the storm
Howls o'er the shrinking Moor. The scowling gales
This moment slumber, and a dreary calm
Prevails-the calm of Death;-the listless eye
Turns from thy utter loneliness. Yet Man,
In days long flown, upon the mount's high crest
Has braved the highland gale and made the rocks
Re-echo with his voice. Not always thus
Has hover'd, Crockern, o'er thy leafless scalp,
The silence and the solitude that now
Oppresses the crush'd spirit ; for I stand
Where once the fathers of the forest held
(An iron-race) the Parliament that gave
The forest law. Ye legislators, nursed
In lap of modern luxury, revere
The venerable spot, where, simply clad
And breathing mountain breezes, sternly sat
The hardy mountain council. O'er them bent
No other dome but that in which the cloud
Sails-the blue dome of heaven. The ivy hung
Its festoons round the Tor, and at the foot
Of that rude fabric-piled by nature-bloom'd
The heath-flower. Still the naked hill uprears,
Sublime, its granite pyramid, and while
The statue, and the column, and the fane
Superb, the boast of Man, in fairer climes,
Crockern, than thine, have strew'd the groaning earth
With beauteous ruin,-the enduring Tor,
Baffling the elements and fate, remains-
Claiming our reverence-that proudly tower'd
Of old, above the senate of the Moor.

NOTE 17.
Deserted Crockern.

This tor, so well known to antiquaries, thongh few of them perhaps have seen it, stands at the back of a cottage and estate belonging to the Rev. T. H. Mason, about a mile distant from Two Bridges, in the east quarter of the Moor, of which it is reputed by some to be the centre. The annexed vignette will give a better idea of it than any written description. The president or judge's chair, part of the bench for the jurors, and three irregular steps for ascending, are still partially visible; but, either by the course of time or spoliation, it has become dilapidated, and report affirms the latter, ascribing it to the late Sir Francis Buller or Mr Thomas Leaman, one of whom is said to have taken away a large thin table of granite, of which stone the whole is formed, and removed it to Dunnabridge estate, near Prince Hall; but, on strict inquiry, particularly of the sexton of Prince Town Chapel, who has resided more than 40 years on the Moor, there is strong reason for disbelieving the report or rather calumny.

Crockern tor must always command respect as an interesting relic of old British manners, and as a memorial of the Saxon Witena-gemot or earlier parliament of the realm, which, like the stannary parliament, as it is most commonly styled, was held in the open air.

[Text may be taken from a different source or edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.]