began it; climate has carried it out.

WILL IRWIN,
in _The City That Was._

APRIL 3.

AN EASTER OFFERING.

I watched a lily through the Lenten-tide;
From when its emerald sheath first pierced the mould.
I saw the satin blades uncurl, unfold,
And, softly upward, stretch with conscious pride
Toward the fair sky. At length, the leaves beside,
There came a flower beauteous to behold,
Breathing of purest joy and peace untold;
Its radiance graced the Easter altar-side.
And in my heart there rose a sense of shame
That I, alas, no precious gift had brought
Which could approach the beauty of this thing--
I who had sought to bear the Master's name!
Humbly I bowed while meek repentance wrought,
With silent tears, her chastened offering.

BLANCHE M. BURBANK

APRIL 4.

For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations,
deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars. It comes
upon one with new force that the Chaldeans were a desert-bred people.
It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the
wide, clear heavens to risings and settings unobscured. They look
large and near and palpitant; as if they moved on some stately service
not needful to declare. Wheeling to their stations in the sky, they
make the poor world fret of no account. Of no account you who lie out
there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub from
you and howls and howls.

MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._

APRIL 5.

DESERT CALLS.

There are breaks in the voice of the shouting street
Where the smoke drift comes sifting down,
And I list to the wind calls, far and sweet--
They are not from the winds of the town.
O I lean to the rush of the desert air
And the bite of the desert sand,
I feel the hunger, the thirst and despair--
And the joy of the still border land!
For the ways of the city are blocked to the end
With the grim procession of death--
The treacherous love and the shifting friend
And the reek of a multitude's breath.
But the arms of the Desert are lean and slim
And his gaunt breast is cactus-haired,
His ways are as rude as the mountain rim--
But the heart of the Desert is bared.

HARLEY R. WILEY,
in _Out West Magazine._

APRIL 6.

In the universal pean of gladness which the earth at Eastertide raises
to the Lord of Life, the wilderness and the