THE BEAN-STALK

This is how I came,— I put

Here my knee, there my foot,

Up and up, from shoot to shoot —

And the blessed bean-stalk thinning

Like the mischief all the time,

Till it took me rocking, spinning,

In a dizzy, sunny circle,

Making angles with the root,

Far and out above the cackle

Of the city I was born in,

Till the little dirty city

In the light so sheer and sunny

Shone as dazzling bright and pretty

As the money that you find

In a dream of finding money —

What a wind! What a morning!—

Till the tiny, shiny city,

When I shot a glance below,

Shaken with a giddy laughter,

Sick and blissfully afraid,

Was a dew-drop on a blade,

And a pair of moments after

Was the whirling guess I made,—

And the wind was like a whip

Cracking past my icy ears,

And my hair stood out behind,

And my eyes were full of tears,

Wide-open and cold,

More tears than they could hold,

The wind was blowing so,

And my teeth were in a row,

Dry and grinning,

And I felt my foot slip,

And I scratched the wind and whined,

And I clutched the stalk and jabbered,

With my eyes shut blind,—

What a wind! What a wind!

Your broad sky, Giant,

Is the shelf of a cupboard;

I make bean-stalks, I'm

A builder, like yourself,

But bean-stalks is my trade,

I could n't make a shelf,

Do n't know how they're made,

Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant —

La, what a climb!