Capo I

A5
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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
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except here and there a stray picket,
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is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro,
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by a rifleman hid in the thicket
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'Tis nothing a private or two now and then,
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will not count in the news of the battle
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Not an officer lost, only one of the men,
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moaning out all alone the death rattle.

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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!" 

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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
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where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming
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And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
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and the light of the camp fires are gleaming
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There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread,
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as he tramps from the rock to the fountain
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And thinks of the two on the low trundle bed,
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far away in the cot on the mountain.

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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!" 

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His musket falls slack his face, dark and grim ,
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grows gentle with memories tender
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As he mutters a pray'r for the children asleep,
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and their mother, "May heaven defend her!"
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The moon seems to shine as brightly as then,
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that night, when the love yet unspoken.
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Leap'd up to his lips, and when low murmur'd vows,
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were pledg'd, to be ever un broken.

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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!" 

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Then drawing his sleeve roughly o'er his eyes,
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he dashes off the tears that are welling
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And gathers his gun close up to his breast,
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as if to keep down the heart's swelling
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He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree,
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and his footstep is lagging and weary
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Yet onward he goes, thro' the broad belt of light,
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toward the shades of the forest so dreary.

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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!" 

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Hark! was it the night-wind that rustles the leaves,
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was it the moonlight so wond'rously flashing?
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It look'd like a rifle! "Ha, Mary, good-bye!",
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and his life-blood is ebbing and plashing.
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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
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no sound save the rush of the river
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While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
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the picket's off duty forev er.

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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!" 

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"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!"