'Tis night, and Mamatee is absent still!
Why should this sorrow weigh upon my heart,
And other lonely things on earth have rest?
Oh, could I be with them! The lily shone
All day upon the stream, and now it sleeps
Under the wave in peace--in cradle soft
Which sorrow soon may fashion for my grave.
Ye shadows which do creep into my thoughts--
Ye curtains of despair! what is my fault,
That ye should hide the happy earth from me?
Once I had joy of it, when tender Spring,
Mother of beauty, hid me in her leaves;
When Summer led me by the shores of song,
And forests and far-sounding cataracts
Melted my soul with music. I have heard
The rough chill harpings of dismantled woods,
When Fall had stripp'd them, and have felt a joy
Deeper than ear could lend unto the heart;
And when the Winter from his mountains wild
Look'd down on death, and, in the frosty sky,
The very stars seem'd hung with icicles,
Then came a sense of beauty calm and cold,
That wean'd me from myself, yet knit me still
With kindred bonds to Nature. All is past,
And he--who won from me such love for him,
And he--my valiant uncle and my friend,
Comes not to lift the cloud that drapes my soul,
And shield me from the fiendish Prophet's power.

_Enter_ MAMATEE.

Give me his answer in his very words!

_Mamatee._ There is a black storm raging in his mind--
His eye darts lightning like the angry cloud
Which hangs in woven darkness o'er the earth.
Brief is his answer--you must go to him.
The Long-Knife's camp-fires gleam among the oaks
Which dot yon western hill. A thousand men
Are sleeping there cajoled to fatal dreams
By promises the Prophet breaks to-night.
Hark! 'tis the war-song.

_Iena._ Dares the Prophet now
Betray Tecumseh's trust, and break his faith?

_Mamatee._ He dares do anything will feed ambition.
His dancing braves are frenzied by his tongue,
Which prophesies revenge and victory.
Before the break of day he will surprise
The Long-Knife's camp, and hang our people's fate
Upon a single onset.

_Iena._ Should he fail?

_Mamatee._ Then all will fail;--Tecumseh's scheme will fail.[R]

_Iena._ It shall not! Let us go to him at once!

_Mamatee._ And risk your life?

_Iena._ Risk hovers everywhere
When night and man combine for darksome deeds.
I'll go to him, and argue on my knees--
Yea, yield my hand--would I could give my heart
To stay his purpose and this act of ruin.

_Mamatee._