Brother, let me ask, Do you remember how our father fell? TECUMSEH. Who can forget Kanawha's bloody fray? He died for home in battle with the whites. PROPHET. And you remember, too, that boyish morn, When all our braves were absent on the chase-- That morn when you and I half-dreaming lay In summer grass, but woke to deadly pain Of loud-blown bugles ringing through the air. They came!--a rush of chargers from the woods, With tramplings, cursings, shoutings manifold, And headlong onset, fierce with brandished swords, Of frontier troopers eager for the fight. Scarce could a lynx have screened itself from sight, So sudden the attack--yet, trembling there, We crouched unseen, and saw our little town Stormed, with vile slaughter of small babe and crone, And palsied grandsire--you remember it? TECUMSEH. Remember it! Alas, the echoing Of that wild havoc lingers in my brain! O wretched age, and injured motherhood, And hapless maiden-wreck! PROPHET. Yet this has been Our endless history, and it is this Which crams my very veins with cruelty. My pulses bound to see those devils fall Brained to the temples, and their women cast As offal to the wolf. TECUMSEH. Their crimes are great-- Our wrongs unspeakable! yet my revenge Is open war. It never shall be said Tecumseh's hate went armed with cruelty. There's reason in revenge; but spare our own! These gloomy sacrifices sap our strength; And henceforth from your wizard scrutinies I charge you to forbear. But who's the white You hold as captive? PROPHET. He is called LEFROY-- A captive, but too free to come and go. Our warriors struck his trail by chance, and found His tent close by the Wabash, where he lay With sprained ankle, foodless and alone. He had a book of pictures with him there Of Long-Knife forts, encampments and their chiefs-- Most recognizable; so, reasoning thence, Our warriors took him for a daring spy, And brought him here, and tied him to the stake. Then he declared he was a Saganash-- No Long-Knife he! but one who loved our race, And would adopt our ways--with honeyed words, Couched in sweet voice, and such appealing eyes That Iena, our niece--who listened near-- Believing, rushed, and cut him from the tree. I hate his smiles, soft ways, and smooth-paced tread, And would, ere now, have killed him but for her; For ever since, unmindful of her race, She has upheld him, and our matrons think That he has won her heart.