Without a stream, without a tree, The vale has been and still will be— Though obelisks with many a trace Of many an immemorial race, With many a mighty pyramid In which lost histories lie hid, Rudely engraved on silent stone, For countless centuries unknown, Point, here, and there, and yon, to where God and his angels dwell in air;— And thistles rise and grow and bloom, And cypresses, those trees of gloom, Frown everywhere along the pale Which is the entrance to the vale;— But nothing—nothing _moves_ within: _There_ is no tumult and no din:— Shut out by hills that scarcely show A rift of sky to those below, The dwellers in this lonely spot Rest even by memory forgot:— Recumbent, in a sunless rest They lie, with hands across their breast, So motionless of hand or head That he who gazed would deem them dead, Or sleeping, when their toil was done, Until the rising of the sun. They have no mind, thus left alone; Strike them; you will not hear a groan; An icy torpor fills their veins; They have no mortal cares, or pains, Or sense, as we have; theirs is life, If sleep be life, with nothing rife Which we who love the setting sun And crimson sky and crystal run, And all things else that God has made— We, who would moulder in the shade, Can contemplate or understand Like these inhabitants of the land, These rigid and insensible blocks Of clay, as cold of heart as rocks: Still, so the legend sings, whose tune Dropped, dew-like, from the tearful moon, When sky and earth shall pass away, When space becomes eternal day The Dwellers of the Vale will rise Beyond what once have been the skies, Radiant, before immortal eyes, To live and love in Paradise! * * * * * [Illustration: THE GAME OF DRAUGHTS. Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.] * * * * * THE GAME OF DRAUGHTS. [WITH A STEEL ENGRAVING.] BY C. F. ASHMEAD. There is a game, A frivolous and foolish play, Wherewith we while away the day. BYRON’S MAZEPPA. THE Lady Arabella H—— was the reigning belle and beauty of a court not excelled, in the long annals of its previous history, for accomplished and fascinating women. Many stars, of no little magnitude, sparkled in the regal diadem of female loveliness, but she outshone them all. In the graces of her person, in wit, in accomplishments, she appeared without a competitor—not to say without a rival. Her own sex reluctantly yielded the palm to her indisputable pretensions, and the other proudly crowned her with its leaves. She was the Venus of the day.