StoryTitle("caps", "The Picket Guard ")?>
PoemStart()?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"All quiet along the Potomac,\" they say,", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "\"Except now and then a stray picket", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Is shot, as he walks on his beat to and fro,", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "By a rifleman hid in the thicket.", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "'Tis nothing; a private or two now and then", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Will not count in the news of the battle;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Not an officer lost—only one of the men,", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Moaning; out all alone the death-rattle.\"", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All quiet along the Potomac to-night,", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Or the light of the watch-fires are gleaming. ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night-wind,", "")?>
PagePoem(50, "L0", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Thro' the forest leaves softly is creeping; ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "While stars up above, with their glittering eyes, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Keep guard—for the army is sleeping. ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "There's only the sound of the lone sentry's tread ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "As he tramps from the rock to the fountain, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he thinks of the two in the lone trundle bed, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Far away in the cot in the mountain.", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "His musket falls slack; his face dark and grim, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Grows gentle with memories tender,", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "For their mother—may heaven defend her! ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He passes the fountain, the blasted pine-tree—", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The footstep is lagging and weary;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Yet onward he goes through the broad belt of light ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Toward the shades of the forest so dreary.", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Hark! was it the night wind that rustled the leaves? ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "It looks like a rifle! \"Ha, Mary, good-by!\" ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing. ", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "All quiet along the Potomac to-night—", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "No sound save the rush of the river;", "")?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead, ", "")?>
PoemLine("L2", "", "The picket's off duty forever.", "")?>
PoemAttribution("85", "—E. E. Beers")?>
PoemEnd()?>