IENA. Oh, have I eaten of the spirit-plant! My head swims, and my senses are confused, And all grows dark around me. Where am I? Alas! I know naught save of wanderings, And this poor bosom's weight. What pang is here, Which all my pressing cannot ease away? Poor heart! poor heart! Oh, I have travelled far, And in the forest's brooding place, or where Night-shrouded surges beat on lonely shores, Have sickened with my deep, dread, formless fears; But, never have I felt what now I feel! Great Spirit, hear me! help me!--this is death! [_Staggers and swoons behind some shrubbery.] Enter_ GENERAL BROCK _and_ LEFROY. BROCK. You may be right, Lefroy! but, for my part, I stand by old tradition and the past. My father's God is wise enough for me, And wise enough this grey world's wisest men. LEFROY. I tell you, Brock, The world is wiser than its wisest men, And shall outlive the wisdom of its gods Made after man's own liking. The crippled throne No longer shelters the uneasy king, And outworn sceptres and imperial crowns Now grow fantastic as an idiot's dream. These perish with the kingly pastime, war, And war's blind tool, the monster, Ignorance! Both hateful in themselves, but this the worst. One tyrant will remain--one impious fiend. Whose name is Gold--our earliest, latest foe! Him must the earth destroy, ere man can rise, Rightly self made, to his high destiny, Purged of his grossest faults; humane and kind; Co-equal with his fellows, and as free. BROCK. Lefroy, such thoughts, let loose, would wreck the world. The kingly function is the soul of state, The crown the emblem of authority, And loyalty the symbol of all faith. Omitting these, man's government decays-- His family falls into revolt and ruin. But let us drop this bootless argument, And tell me more of those unrivalled wastes You and Tecumseh visited. LEFROY. We left The silent forest, and, day after day, Great prairies swept beyond our aching sight Into the measureless West; uncharted realms, Voiceless and calm, save when tempestuous wind Rolled the rank herbage into billows vast, And rushing tides, which never found a shore. And tender clouds, and veils of morning mist Cast flying shadows, chased by flying light, Into interminable wildernesses, Flushed with fresh blooms, deep perfumed by the rose, And murmurous with flower-fed bird and bee. The deep-grooved bison-paths like furrows lay, Turned by the cloven hoofs of thundering herds Primeval, and still travelled as of yore. And gloomy valleys opened at our feet-- Shagged with dusk cypresses and hoary pine; And sunless gorges, rummaged by the wolf, Which through long reaches of the prairie wound, Then melted slowly into upland vales, Lingering, far-stretched amongst the spreading hills. BROCK. What charming solitudes! And life was there!