Standard (EADGBE)
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
except here and there a stray picket,
is shot as he walks on his beat to and fro,
by a rifleman hid in the thicket
'Tis nothing a private or two now and then,
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 tonight!"
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming
And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
and the light of the camp fires are gleaming
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 on the low trundle bed,
far away in the cot on the mountain.
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!"
His musket falls slack his face, dark and grim,
grows gentle with memories tender
As he mutters a pray'r for the children asleep,
and their mother, "May heaven defend her!"
The moon seems to shine as brightly as then,
that night, when the love yet unspoken.
Leap'd up to his lips, and when low murmur'd vows,
were pledg'd, to be ever un broken.
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!"
Then drawing his sleeve roughly o'er his eyes,
he dashes off the tears that are welling
And gathers his gun close up to his breast,
as if to keep down the heart's swelling
He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree,
and his footstep is lagging and weary
Yet onward he goes, thro' the broad belt of light,
toward the shades of the forest so dreary.
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!"
Hark! was it the night-wind that rustles the leaves,
was it the moonlight so wond'rously flashing?
It look'd like a rifle! "Ha, Mary, good-bye!",
and his life-blood is ebbing and plashing.
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight,"
no sound save the rush of the river
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,
the picket's off duty forev er.
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!"
"All quiet along the Potomac tonight!"