Second April / by Edna St. Vincent Millay [electronic resource]

THE BEAN-STALK

HO, Giant! This is I! I have built me a bean-stalk into your sky! La, — but it's lovely, up so high!

This is how I came, — I put Here my knee, there my foot, Up and up, from shoot to shoot — And the blessèd 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 couldn't make a shelf, Don't know how they're made, Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant —La, what a climb!