The Picket-Guard
“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.
’ 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, his death-rattle.”