“The ox bit his master;
How came that to pass?
The ox heard his master say
‘All flesh is grass!’”
There came a crisis in the Civil War when soldier and statesman stood still wondering what to do next, for they were powerless without the spirit of the people. Then William Cullen Bryant wrote the great song in which he poured out the burning thought of the people:
“We’re coming, Father Abraham,
Three hundred thousand more,
From Mississippi’s winding stream
And from New England’s shore.
We leave our plows and workshops,