EASTER  EVE  AT  KERAK-MOAB.
By  permission  of  and  arrangement  with  Houghton,  Mifflin  A  Co.,

Boston,  Mass.
THE  fiery  mid-March  sun  a  moment  hung
Above  the  bleak  Judean  wilderness ;
Then  darkness  swept  upon  us,  and  'twas  night.
The  brazen  day  had  stifled.     On  our  eyes,
That  throbbed  and  stung,  the  dusk  fell  like  a  balm.
We  lay  and  looked  and  listened.     The  warm  wind
Blew  low  and  lutelike,  and  a  fountain's  fret
Made  sweeter  melody  than  all  the  streams
That  gush  from  Nebo  to  far  Sinai.
A  strange-voiced  bird  among  the  thicket  thorns
Sang  to  a  star.     The  jackals  loud  resumed
Their  weird  nocturnal  quarrels,  and  the  laugh
Of  some  hill-strayed  hyena  broke  across
The  wild  dog's  bickerings,— ironic,  mad.
The  palms  that  waved  o'er  squalid  Jericho
Towered  ghostly,  and  the  Moab  mountains  made
An  inky  line  along  the  eastern  sky.
