Classic Poem

SCENE FOURTH. — The S AME . The PORTICO OF G ENERAL H ARRISON'S HOUSE . A N OPEN GROVE AT A LITTLE DISTANCE IN FRONT .

Enter T ECUMSEH and his followers with L EFROY in Indian dress. They all stop at the grove .

H ARRISON . Why halts he there?
Go tell him he is welcome to our house.
1 ST Officer . How grave and decorous they look — " the mien
Of pensive people born in ancient woods. "
But look at him! Look at Tecumseh there —
How simple in attire! that eagle plume
Sole ornament, and emblem of his spirit.
And yet, far-scanned, there's something in his face
That likes us not. Would we were out of this!
H ARRISON . Yes; even at a distance I can see
His eyes distilling anger. 'Tis no sign
Of treachery, which ever drapes with smiles
The most perfidious purpose. Our poor strength
Would fail at once should he break out on us;
But let us hope 'tis yet a war of wits
Where firmness may enact the part of force.
What answer do you bring?
O RDERLY . Tecumseh says:
" Houses are built for whites — the red man's house,
Leaf-roofed, and walled with living oak, is there —
Let our white brother meet us in it! "
2 ND Officer . Oh!
White brother! So he levels to your height,
And strips your office of its dignity.
3 RD Officer . 'Tis plain he cares not for your dignity,
And touchingly reminds us of our tenets.
Our nation spurns the outward shows of state,
And ceremony dies for lack of service.
Pomp is discrowned, and throned regality
Dissolved away in our new land and laws.
Man is the Presence here!
1 ST Officer . Well, for my part,
I like not that one in particular.
3 RD Officer . No more do I! I wish I were a crab,
And had its courtly fashion of advancing.
H ARRISON . Best yield to him, the rather thaThe now
Invites our confidence. His heavy force
Scants good opinion somewhat, yet I know
There's honour, aye, and kindness in this Chief.
3 RD Officer . Yes, faith, he loves us all, and means to keep
Locks of our hair for memory. Here goes!
H ARRISON . We have not met to bury our respect,
Or mar our plea with lack ol courtesy.
The Great Chief knows it is his father's wish
ThaThe should sit by him.
T ECUMSEH . My father's wish!
My father is the sun; the earth my mother,
And on her mighty bosom I shall rest.
H ARRISON . ( Rising .) I asked Tecumseh to confer with me,
Not in war's hue, but for the ends of peace.
Our own intent — witness our presence here,
Unarmed save those few muskets and our swords.
How comes it, then, thaThe descends on us
With this o'erbearing and untimely strength?
Tecumseh's virtues are the theme of all;
Wisdom and courage, frankness and good faith —
To speak of these things is to think of him!
Yet, as one theft makes men suspect the thief —
Be all his life else spent in honesty —
So does one breach of faithfulness in man
Wound all his after deeds. There is a pause
In some men's goodness like the barren time
Of those sweet trees which yield each second year,
Wherein what seems a niggardness in nature.
Is but good husbandry for future gifts.
But this tree bears, and bears most treacherous fruit!
Here is a gross infringement of all laws
That shelter men in council, where should sit
No disproportioned force save that of reason —
Our strong dependence still, and argument,
Of better consequence than that of arms,
If great Tecumseh should give ear to it.
T ECUMSEH . ( Rising .) You called upon Tecumseh and he came!
You sent your messenger, asked us to bring
Our wide complaint to you — and it is here!
Why is our brother angry at our force,
Since every man but represents a wrong?
Nay! rather should our force be multiplied!
Fill up your streets and overflow your fields,
And crowd upon the earth for standing room;
Still would our wrongs outweigh our witnesses,
And scant recital for the lack of tongues.
I know your reason, and its bitter heart,
Its form of justice, clad with promises —
The cloaks of death! That reason was the snare
Which tripped our ancestors in days of yore —
Who knew not falsehood and so feared it not:
Men who mistook your fathers' vows for truth,
And took them, cold and hungry, to their hearts,
Filled them with food, and shared with them their homes,
With such return as might make baseness blush.
What tree e'er bore such treacherous fruit as this?
But let it pass! let wrongs die with the wronged!
The red man's memory is full of graves.
But wrongs live with the living, who are here —
Inheritors of all our fathers' sighs,
And tears, and garments wringing wet with blood.
The injuries which you have done to us
Cry out for remedy, or wide revenge.
Restore the forests you have robbed us of —
Our stolen homes and vales of plenteous corn!
Give back the boundaries, which are our lives,
Ere the axe rise! aught else is reasonless.
H ARRISON . Tecumseh's passion is a dangerous flood
Which sweeps away his judgment. Let him lift
His threatened axe to hit defenceless heads!
It cannot mar the body of our right,
Nor graze the even justice of our claim:
These still would live, uncancelled by our death.
Let reason rule us, in whose sober light
We read those treaties which offend him thus:
What nation was the first established here,
Settled for centuries, with title sound?
You know that people, the Miami, well.
Long ere the white man tripped his anchors cold,
To cast them by the glowing western isles,
They lived upon these lands in peace, and none
Dared cavil at their claim. We bought from them,
For such equivalent to largess joined,
That every man was hampered with our goods,
And stumbled on profusion. But give ear!
Jealous lest aught might fail of honesty —
Lest one lean interest or poor shade of right
Should point at us — we made the Kickapoo
And Delaware the sharer of our gifts,
And stretched the arms of bounty over heads
Which held but by Miami sufferance.
But, you! whence came you? and what rights have you?
The Shawanoes are interlopers here —
Witness their name! mere wanderers from the South!
Spurned thence by angry Creek and Yamasee —
Now here to stir up strife, and tempt the tribes
To break the seals of faith. I am surprised
That they should be so led, and more than grieved
Tecumseh has such ingrates at his back.
T ECUMSEH . Call you those ingrates who but claim their own,
And owe you nothing but revenge? Those men
Are here to answer and confront your lies.
Miami, Delaware and Kickapoo!
Ye are alleged as signers of those deeds —
Those dark and treble treacheries of Fort Wayne.
Ye chiefs, whose cheeks are tanned with battle-smoke,
Stand forward, then, and answer if you did it!
K ICKAPOO C HIEF . ( Rising .) Not I! I disavow them! They were made
By village chiefs whose vanity o'ercame
Their judgment, and their duty to our race.
D ELAWARE C HIEF . ( Rising .) And I reject the treaties in the name
Of all our noted braves and warriors.
They have no weight save with the palsied heads
Which dote on friendly compacts in the past.
M IAMI C HIEF . ( Rising .) And I renounce them also. They were signed
By sottish braves — the Long-Knife's tavern chiefs —
Who sell their honour like a pack of fur,
Make favour with the pale-face for his fee,
And caper with the hatchet for his sport.
I am a chief by right of blood, and fling
Your false and flimsy treaties in your face.
I am my nation's head, and own but one
As greater than myself, and he is here!
T ECUMSEH . 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.
H ARRISON . Those men got ample payment for their land,
Full recompense, and just equivalent.
T ECUMSEH . They flew from death to light upon iThere!
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. O God!
'Tis thus the pale-face prays, then cries " Amen " —
He clamours, and his Maker answers him,
Whilst our Great Spirit sleeps! Oh, 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!
H ARRISON . Still, with the voice of wrath Tecumseh speaks,
And not with reason's tongue.
T ECUMSEH . Oh, 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.
T WANG . Did you ever hear the like? If I hed my shootin'-iron, darn me if I wouldn't draw a bead on that barkin' savage. The hungry devil gits under-holts on our Guvner every time.
S LAUGH . You bet! I reckon he'd better put a lump o' bacon in his mouth to keep his bilin' sap o' passion down.
B LOAT . That's mor'n I'd do. This is jest what we git for allowin' the skulkin' devils to live. I'd vittle 'em on lead pills if I was Guvner.
T WANG . That's so! Our civilizashun is jest this — we know what's what. If I hed my way —
H ARRISON . Silence, you fools! If you provoke him here your blood be on your heads.
G ERKIN . Right you air, Guvner! We'll close our dampers.
T ECUMSEH . My brother's ears have heard. Where is his tongue?
H ARRISON . My honest ears ache in default of reason.
Tecumseh is reputed wise, yet now
His fuming passions from his judgment fly,
Like roving steeds which gallop from the catch,
And kick the air, wasting in wantonness
More strength than in submission. His threats fall
On fearless ears. Knows he not of our force,
Which in the East swarms like mosquitoes here?
Our great Kentucky and Virginia fires?
Our mounted men and soldier-citizens?
These all have stings — let him beware of them!
T ECUMSEH . Who does not know your vaunting citizens!
Well drilled in fraud and disciplined in crime;
But in aught else — as honour, justice, truth —
A rabble, and a base disordered herd.
We know them; and our nations, knit in one,
Will challenge them, should this, our last appeal,
Fall on unheeding ears. My brother, hearken!
East of Ohio you possess our lands,
Thrice greater than your needs, but west of it
We claim them all; then, let us make its flood
A common frontier, and a sacred stream
Of which our nations both may drink in peace.
H ARRISON . Absurd! The treaties of Fort Wayne must stand.
Your village chiefs are heads of civil rule,
Whose powers you seek to centre in yourself,
Or vest in warriors whose trade is blood.
We bought from those, and from your peaceful men —
Your wiser brothers — who had faith in us.
T ECUMSEH . Poor, ruined brothers, weaned from honest lives!
H ARRISON . They knew our wisdom, and preferred to sell
Their cabins, fields, and wilds of unused lands
For rich reserves and ripe annuities.
As for your nations being one like ours —
'Tis false — else would they speak one common tongue.
Nay, more! your own traditions trace you here —
Widespread in lapse of ages through the land —
From o'er the mighty ocean of the West.
What better title have you than ourselves,
Who came from o'er the ocean of the East,
And meet with you on free and common ground?
Be reasonable, and let wisdom's words
Displace your passion, and give judgment vent.
Think more of bounty, and talk less of rights —
Our hands are full of gifts, our hearts of love.
T ECUMSEH . My brother's love is like the trader's warmth —
O'er with the purchase. Oh, unhappy lives —
Our gifts which go for yours! Once we were strong.
Once all this mighty continent was ours,
And the Great Spirit made it for our use.
He knew no boundaries, so had we peace
In the vast shelter of His handiwork,
And, happy here, we cared not whence we came.
We brought no evils thence — no treasured hate,
No greed of gold, no quarrels over God;
And so our broils, to narrow issues joined,
Were soon composed, and touched the ground of peace.
Our very ailments, rising from the earth,
And not from any foul abuse in us,
Drew back, and let age ripen to death's hand.
Thus flowed our lives until your people came,
Till from the East our matchless misery came!
Since then our tale is crowded with your crimes,
With broken faith, with plunder of reserves —
The sacred remnants of our wide domain —
With tamp'rings, and delirious feasts of fire,
The fruit of your thrice-cursed stills of death,
Which make our good men bad, our bad men worse,
Ay! blind them till they grope in open day,
And stumble into miserable graves.
Oh, it is piteous, for none will hear!
There is no hand to help, no heart to feel,
No tongue to plead for us in all your land.
But every hand aims death, and every heart,
Ulcered with hate, resents our presence here;
And every tongue cries for our children's land
To expiate their crime of being born.
Oh, we have ever yielded in the past,
But we shall yield no more! Those plains are ours!
Those forests are our birth-right and our home!
Let not the Long-Knife build one cabin there —
Or fire from it will spread to every roof,
To compass you, and light your souls to death!
H ARRISON . Dreams he of closing up our empty plains?
Our mighty forests waiting for the axe?
Our mountain steeps engrailed with iron and gold?
There's no asylumed madness like to this!
Mankind shall have its wide possession here;
And these rough assets of a virgin world
Stand for its coming, and await its hand.
The poor of every land shall come to this,
Heart-full of sorrows, and shall lay them down.
L EFROY . ( Springing to his feet .) The poor! What care your rich thieves for the poor?
Those graspers hate the poor, from whom they spring,
More deeply than they hate this injured race.
Much have they taken from it — let them now
Take this prediction, with the red man's curse!
The time will come when that dread power — the Poor —
Whom, in their greed and pride of wealth, they spurn —
Will rise on them, and tear them from their seats;
Drag all their vulgar splendours down, and pluck
Their shallow women from their lawless beds,
Yea, seize their puling and unhealthy babes,
And fling them as foul pavement to the streets.
In all the dreaming of the Universe
There is no darker vision of despairs!
1 ST Officer . What man is this? 'Tis not an Indian.
H ARRISON . Madman, you rave! — you know not what you say.
T ECUMSEH . Master of guile, this axe should speak for him!
2 ND Officer . This man means mischief! Quick! Bring up the guard!