w the joy of motion
Till you rise up over the earth some day
And soar like an eagle, away--away.

High and higher, above each spire,
Till lost to sight is the tallest steeple,
With the winds you chase in a valiant race,
Looping, swooping, where mountains are grouping,
Hailing them comrades, in place of people.
Oh, vast is the rapture the bird man knows
As into the ether he mounts and goes.

He is over the sphere of human fear;
He has come into touch with things supernal.
At each man's gate death stands await;
And dying flying were better than lying
In sick beds crying for life eternal.
Better to fly halfway to God
Than to burrow too long like a worm in the sod.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

NATIONS BORN AND REBORN

In America, and in many other countries, people have listened with
wonder and enjoyment to strangely beautiful music played by, probably
the greatest of all pianists of today, Ignace Jan Paderewski. For
years he has traveled from country to country and from city to city,
playing the piano in a manner no other has been able to imitate,
although Chopin's playing, it is said, had much the same effect upon
the audiences. In Paderewski's playing as in his composition there is
always an undercurrent deeply sad and weird. No one but a genius from
the martyred land of Poland, or from some other that had equally
suffered, could play as Chopin and Paderewski played or could compose
music such as they composed. All the old glory of Poland in the
ancient centuries, her grievous losses, the terrible wrongs done her,
and the long-treasured dreams of a new and happier day for her people,
live in the soul of Paderewski, and vibrate through his very finger
tips as they move over the keys of his loved instrument.

Today the dreams of the Polish people are coming true. Hopes cherished
since about the twelfth century are through the World War being
realized in a new Poland.

The tenth century saw the formation of the first kingdom of Poland in
central Europe to the east of the Germans. The country grew and
prospered for two hundred years. Then, lacking kingly leadership, it
became weak, and was finally divided into many principalities. At that
time came the terrible Tartar invasion across Russia and into Poland,
resulting in shocking desolation and ruin.

When complete destruction was threatened from hostile peoples, on the
north and east, the Poles summoned aid from the Te