The kitchen chimney
Robert Frost
1. 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.
2. However far you must go for bricks.
Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound,
Buy me enough for a full-length chimney
And build the chimney clear from the ground.
3. It's not that I am 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
1. Pick out cases in which Frost gives concrete descriptions of building the kitchen chimney.
2. Comment on the poet's address to the builder that opens the first stanza and speak on the peculiar use of the words “please” in this stanza.
3. Say why it is important to “build the chimney clear from the ground”. Note the implication in the third stanza “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”.
4. Comment on the poet's dread of “the ominous stain of tar” (the fourth stanza) and say what may be implied in the lines: “And the smell of fire drowned in rain that there always is when the chimney's false”.
5. Speak on the meaning of the expression “to build castles in the air” and say why the poet alludes to this expression in the conclusion of his poem.
6. Comment on the conversational tone Frost builds into his verse. Speak on the EMs and SDs that show, “Frost's poems are people talking” as one of his critics maintained.
7. Discuss the form of the poem, its rhythm and rhyme.
8. Summing up the analysis speak about the message of the poem and the main SDs employed by the poet.
SONNET 116
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