--swain."

Poor Tom could never catch the last note. He had sung
the song for more than forty years, but the memory of this
tone was so blurred, and his cherished ideal of it so high
(or so low, rather), that he never managed to reach it.

Oh, if only summer were eternal! Who could wish a better
supper than ripe berries and molasses? Nor was there need
of sleeping under roof nor of lighting candles to grope his way
to pallet of straw, when he might have the blue vault of heaven
arching over him, and all God's stars for lamps, and for a bed
a horse blanket stretched over an elastic couch of pine needles.
There were two gaunt pines that had been dropping their polished
spills for centuries, perhaps silently adding, year by year,
another layer of aromatic springiness to poor Tom's bed.
Flinging his tired body on this grateful couch, burying his head
in the crushed sweet fern of his pillow with one deep-drawn
sigh of pleasure,--there, haunted by no past and harassed
by no future, slept God's fool as sweetly as a child.

Yes, if only summer were eternal, and youth as well!

But when the blueberries had ripened summer after summer,
and the gaunt pine-trees had gone on for many years weaving poor
Tom's mattress, there came a change in the aspect of things.
He still made his way to the village, seeking chairs to mend;
but he was even more unkempt than of old, his tall figure was bent,
and his fingers trembled as he wove the willow strands in and out,
and over and under.