Sparkles From the Wheel.
Part of the cluster AUTUMN RIVULETS.
SPARKLES FROM THE WHEEL.
WHERE the city's ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day, Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside withthem.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, [ begin page 302 ]
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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.
Part of the cluster AUTUMN RIVULETS.