He is a man with a knotty club in his hand Beating off bulls from the breaks in a pasture fence And he has beaten them back at each fresh assault, McClellan⁠—Burnside⁠—Hooker at Chancellorsville⁠— Pope at the Second Manassas⁠—Banks in the Valley⁠— But the pasture is trampled; his army needs new pasture. An army moves like a locust, eating the grain, And this grain is well-nigh eaten. He cannot mend The breaks in his fence with famine or starving hands, And if he waits the wheel of another year The bulls will come back full-fed, shaking sharper horns While he faces them empty, armed with a hunger-cracked Unmagic stick. There is only this thing to do, To strike at the shield with the strength that he still can use Hoping to burst it asunder with one stiff blow And carry the war up North, to the untouched fields Where his tattered men can feed on the bulls’ own grain, Get shoes and clothes, take Washington if they can, Hold the fighting-gauge in any event.