Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside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