Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

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WHERE the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-
long day,

Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching—I
pause aside withthem.

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 float-
ing—now here absorb'd and arrested;

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The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surround-
ing;)

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.

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