Such did the youthful Ammon seem,
And such does Europe's scourge appear,
As, of the sun, a vertic beam,
The brightest in the golden year.
Nature, who many a gift bestowed,
The strong herculean limbs denied,
But gave—a mind, where genius glowed,
A soul, to valor's self allied.
Ambition as her curse was seen,
Thy every blessing to annoy;
To blight thy laurels' tender green;
The banner of thy fame destroy.
Ambition, by the bard defined
The fault of godlike hearts alone,
Like fortune in her frenzy, blind,
Here gives a prison, there a throne.
Sarah Wentworth Morton.
Scarcely had this "peril" been escaped, when another far more serious threatened the state on its western border. Tecumseh, chief of the Shawanese, was working to unite the western and southern Indians in war against the United States. William Henry Harrison had been made governor of the Indiana territory, and, collecting a force of about six hundred and fifty men, he marched into the Indian country, and, on November 7, 1811, at Tippecanoe, on the Wabash, routed the Indians and destroyed their villages.
THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE
[November 7, 1811]
Awake! awake! my gallant friends;
To arms! to arms! the foe is nigh;
The sentinel his warning sends;
And hark! the treacherous savage cry.
Awake! to arms! the word goes round;
The drum's deep roll, the fife's shrill sound,
The trumpet's blast, proclaim through night,
An Indian band, a bloody fight.