Sparkles From The Wheel

WHERE the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day, Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching--I pause aside with them. By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging, A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife; Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone--by foot and knee, With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly--As he presses with light but firm hand, Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets, Sparkles from the wheel. The scene, and all its belongings--how they seize and affect me! The sad, sharp-chinn'd old man, with worn clothes, and broad shoulder-band of leather; Myself, effusing and fluid--a phantom curiously floating--now here absorb'd and arrested; The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding The attentive, quiet children--the loud, proud, restive base of the streets; The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone--the light-press'd blade, Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold, Sparkles from the wheel.