TECUMSEH. You have your answer, and from those whose rights Stand in your own admission. But from me-- The Shawanoe--the interloper here-- Take the full draught of meaning, and wash down Their dry and bitter truths. Yes! from the South My people came--fall'n from their wide estate Where Altamaha's uncongealing springs Kept a perpetual summer in their sight-- Sweet with magnolia blooms, and dropping balm, And scented breath of orange and of pine. And from the East the hunted Delawares came, Flushed from their coverts and their native streams; Your old allies, men ever true to you, Who, resting after long and weary flight, Are by your bands shot sitting on the ground. 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.