English Poetry. Robert Lee Frost. The Kitchen Chimney. Роберт Ли Фрост.

Robert Lee Frost (Роберт Ли Фрост)

The Kitchen Chimney

Builder, in building the little house,
In every way you may please yourself;
But please please me in the kitchen chimney:
Don’t build me a chimney upon a shelf.

However far you must go for bricks,
Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound,
But me enough for a full-length chimney,
And build the chimney clear from the ground.

It’s not that I’m greatly afraid of fire,
But I never heard of a house that throve
(And I know of one that didn’t thrive)
Where the chimney started above the stove.

And I dread the ominous stain of tar
That there always is on the papered walls,
And the smell of fire drowned in rain
That there always is when the chimney’s false.

A shelf’s for a clock or vase or picture,
But I don’t see why it should have to bear
A chimney that only would serve to remind me
Of castles I used to build in air.

Robert Lee Frost’s other poems:

1. What Fifty Said
2. Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter
3. The Investment
4. The Times Table
5. The Need of Being Versed in Country Things

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