And forests and far-sounding cataracts
Melted my soul with music. I have heard
The rough chill harpings of dismantled woods,
When Fall had stripped them, and have felt a joy
Deeper than ear could lend unto the heart;
And when the Winter from his mountains wild
Looked down on death, and, in the frosty sky,
The very stars seemed hung with icicles,
Then came a sense of beauty calm and cold,
That weaned 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.