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ALL quiet along the Potomac, they say, | |
Except now and then a stray picket | |
Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro, | |
By a rifleman hid in the thicket. | |
T is nothinga private or two now and then | 5 |
Will not count in the news of the battle; | |
Not an officer lostonly one of the men, | |
Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle. | |
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All quiet along the Potomac to-night, | |
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; | 10 |
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon, | |
Or the light of the watch-fire, are gleaming. | |
A tremulous sigh of the gentle night-wind | |
Through the forest leaves softly is creeping; | |
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, | 15 |
Keep guard, for the army is sleeping. | |
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There s only the sound of the lone sentrys tread, | |
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, | |
And thinks of the two in the low trundlebed | |
Far away in the cot on the mountain. | 20 |
His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim, | |
Grows gentle with memories tender, | |
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, | |
For their mother; may Heaven defend her! | |
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The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then, | 25 |
That night, when the love yet unspoken | |
Leaped up to his lipswhen low-murmured vows | |
Were pledged to be ever unbroken. | |
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes, | |
He dashes off tears that are welling, | 30 |
And gathers his gun closer up to its place, | |
As if to keep down the heart-swelling. | |
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He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree, | |
The footstep is lagging and weary; | |
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light, | 35 |
Toward the shade of the forest so dreary. | |
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustled the leaves? | |
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing? | |
It looked like a rifle
Ha! Mary, good-bye! | |
The red life-blood is ebbing and plashing. | 40 |
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All quiet along the Potomac to-night; | |
No sound save the rush of the river; | |
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead | |
The pickets off duty forever! | |
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