HARRISON. Those men got ample payment for their lands,
Full recompense, and just equivalent.

TECUMSEH. They flew from death to light upon it here!
And many a tribe comes pouring from the East,
Smitten with fire - their outraged women, maimed,
Screaming in horror o'er their murdered babes,
Whose sinless souls, slashed out by white men's swords,
Whimper in Heaven for revenge. Oh, God! -
'Tis thus the pale-face prays, then cries 'Amen': -
He clamours, and his Maker answers him,
Whilst our Great Spirit sleeps! O, no, no, no, -
He does not sleep! He will avenge our wrongs!
That Christ the white men murdered, and thought dead -
Who, if He died for mankind, died for us -
He is alive, and looks from heaven on this!
Oh, we have seen your baseness and your guile;
Our eyes are opened and we know your ways!
No longer shall you hoax us with your pleas,
Or with the serpent's cunning wake distrust,
Range tribe 'gainst tribe - then shoot the remnant down,
And in the red man's empty cabin grin,
And shake with laughter o'er his desolate hearth.
No, we are one! the red men all are one
In colour as in love, in lands and fate!

HARRISON. Still, with the voice of wrath Tecumseh
speaks,
And not with reason's tongue.

TECUMSEH. O keep your reason! It is a thief which
steals away our lands.
Your reason is our deadly foe, and writes
The jeering epitaphs for our poor graves.
It is the lying maker of your books,
Wherein our people's vengeance is set down,
But not a word of crimes which led to it.
These are hushed up and hid, whilst all our deeds,
Even in self-defence, are marked as wrongs
Heaped on your blameless heads.

But to the point! Just as our brother's Seventeen
Council Fires
Unite for self-protection so do we.
How can you blame us, since your own example
Is but our model and fair precedent?
The Long-Knife's craft has kept our tribes apart,
Nourished dissensions, raised distinctions up,
Forced us to injuries which, soon as done,
Are made your vile pretexts for bloody war.
But this is past our nations now are one -
Ready to rise in their imbanded strength.
You promised to restore our ravaged lands
On proof that they are ours - that proof is here,
And by the tongues of truth has answered you.
Redeem your sacred pledges, and no more
Our "leaden birds" will sing amongst your corn:
But love will shine on you, and startled peace
Will come again, and build by every hearth.
Refuse - and we shall strike you to the ground!
Pour flame and slaughter on your confines wide,
Till the charred earth, up to the cope of Heaven,
Reeks with the smoke of smouldering villages,
And steam of awful fires half-quenched with blood.

[Citizens converse in undertones.]

TWANG. Did you ever hear the like! Ef I hed my shootin'-
iron darn me ef I wouldn't draw a bead on thet barkin'
savage. The hungry devil gits under-holts on our Guvner
every time.