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At the time when he seemed lost in the maelstrom of partisanship, as Burns in the storm thought of the "ourie" cattle, so Lincoln thought of those hapless sons of misfortune who were biding the "bitter brattle" of slavery.

“I thought me on the ourie cattle, Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle O’ wintry war; Or thro’ the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, Beneath a scaur.

How touching is it, for instance, that, amidst the gloom of personal misery, brooding over the wintry desolation without him and within him, he thinks of the “ourie cattle” and “silly sheep,” and their sufferings in the pitiless storm!

"They think upon the ourie cattle And silly sheep," and man's reason goes to the help of brute instinct.

"They think then of the ourie cattle, And silly sheep;" and though they ken 'twill be a moonless night—for the snow-storm will sweep her out of heaven—up the mountain and down the glen they go, marking where flock and herd have betaken themselves, and now, at nightfall, unafraid of that blind hollow, they descend into the depth where once stood the old Grove of Pines.