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Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
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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Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with
them.
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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,
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Forth issue then in copious golden jets, |
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,
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Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here
absorb'd and arrested,
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The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,) |
The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the
streets,
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The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press'd blade, |
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold, |
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