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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.
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