When all the world is old , lad , And all the trees are brown ; And all the sport is stale , lad , And all the wheels run down ; Creep home , and take your place there , The spent and maimed among : God grant you find one face there , You loved when all was young . Those are the words : but they are only the body of it : the soul of the song was the dear old woman 's sweet face , and sweet voice , and the sweet old air to which she sang ; and that , alas ! one can not put on paper . And at last she grew so stiff and lame , that the angels were forced to carry her ; and they helped her on with her wedding-dress , and carried her up over Harthover Fells , and a long way beyond that too ; and there was a new schoolmistress in Vendale , and we will hope that she was not certificated . And all the while Tom was swimming about in the river , with a pretty little lace-collar of gills about his neck , as lively as a grig , and as clean as a fresh-run salmon . Now if you do n't like my story , then go to the schoolroom and learn your multiplication-table , and see if you like that better . Some people , no doubt , would do so . So much the better for us , if not for them . It takes all sorts , they say , to make a world . CHAPTER III `` He prayeth well who loveth well Both men and bird and beast ; He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small : For the dear God who loveth us , He made and loveth all . '' COLERIDGE . Tom was now quite amphibious . You do not know what that means ? You had better , then , ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher , who may possibly answer you smartly enough , thus - `` Amphibious . Adjective , derived from two Greek words , amphi , a fish , and bios , a beast . An animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast ; which therefore , like the hippopotamus , ca n't live on the land , and dies in the water . '' However that may be , Tom was amphibious : and what is better still , he was clean . For the first time in his life , he felt how comfortable it was to have nothing on him but himself . But he only enjoyed it : he did not know it , or think about it ; just as you enjoy life and health , and yet never think about being alive and healthy ; and may it be long before you have to think about it ! He did not remember having ever been dirty .
Indeed , he did not remember any XXXXX his old troubles , being tired , or hungry , or beaten , or sent up dark chimneys .
For about among as before if in of that to