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 nothing: a private or two, now and then, | 5 |
| Will not count in the news of the battle; | |
| Not an officer lost,—only one of the men, | |
| Moaning out, all alone, the death-rattle. | |
| |
| 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-fires, are gleaming. | |
| |
| A tremulous sigh, as 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. | |
| |
| There ’s only the sound of the lone sentry’s tread | |
| As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, | |
| And thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed, | |
| 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! | |
| |
| The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then, | 25 |
| That night, when the love yet unspoken | |
| Leaped up to his lips,—when 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. | |
| |
| 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 shades 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 by!” | |
| And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing. | 40 |
| |
| 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 picket ’s off duty forever. | |
| |
