"All Quiet Along the Potomac To-Night."
By Lamar Fontaine.
[The claim to the authorship of this poem, which Fontaine alleges, has been disputed in behalf of a lady of New York, but she herself continues silent on the subject.]
"All quiet along the Potomac to-night!"
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 a 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 soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
And their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
And the light of their camp-fires are gleaming.
A tremulous sigh, as a gentle night-wind
Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping;
While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard o'er the army while 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 on the low trundle bed,
Far away, in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack, his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
And their mother--"may heaven defend her!"
The moon seems to shine forth as brightly as then--
That night, when the love, yet unspoken,
Leaped up to his lips, and when low-murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken.