Builder, in building the little house, <br />In every way you may please yourself; <br />But please please me in the kitchen chimney: <br />Don't build me a chimney upon a shelf. <br /> <br />However far you must go for bricks, <br />Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound, <br />But me enough for a full-length chimney, <br />And build the chimney clear from the ground. <br /> <br />It's not that I'm greatly afraid of fire, <br />But I never heard of a house that throve <br />(And I know of one that didn't thrive) <br />Where the chimney started above the stove. <br /> <br />And I dread the ominous stain of tar <br />That there always is on the papered walls, <br />And the smell of fire drowned in rain <br />That there always is when the chimney's false. <br /> <br />A shelf's for a clock or vase or picture, <br />But I don't see why it should have to bear <br />A chimney that only would serve to remind me <br />Of castles I used to build in air.<br /><br />Robert Lee Frost<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/kitchen-chimney-the/
