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Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day,Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them.
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 butfirm 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 broadshoulder-band of leather,Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now hereabsorb’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.
Words in this poem
- ceaseless a.
- Without pause or end; incessant.
- livelong a.
- Whole; entire; long in passing; -- used of time, as day or night, in adverbial phrases, and usually with a sense of tediousness. [For lifelong. Cf. Lifelong.]
- flagging n.
- A pavement or sidewalk of flagstones; flagstones, collectively.
- curiously adv.
- In a curious manner.
- restive a.
- Unwilling to go on; obstinate in refusing to move forward; stubborn; drawing back. [OF. restif, F. rétif, fr. L. restare to stay back, withstand, resist. See Rest remainder, and cf. Restiff.]
- purr v. i.
- To murmur as a cat. See Pur.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sparkles from the Wheel is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, Sparkles from the Wheel, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/sparkles-from-the-wheel.html, id L04002.
Form and metre
Sparkles from the Wheel is 19 lines in 3 stanzas. 83% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.0 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 16% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 3 -A--A--A-- me · broadA · leather · here · arrestedA · surrounding · streets · bladeA · gold · wheel
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Where the city’s ceaseless crowd moves on the livelong day, | 13 | ··/˘/˘····/˘· |
| Withdrawn I join a group of children watching, I pause aside with them. | 17 | ˘/·····/˘/˘··˘/·· |
| By the curb toward the edge of the flagging, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| A knife-grinder works at his wheel sharpening a great knife, | 14 | ··/˘····/˘˘··· |
| Bending over he carefully holds it to the stone, by foot and knee, | 17 | /˘···/˘˘········· |
| With measur’d tread he turns rapidly, as he presses with light but | 16 | ·/˘···/˘˘··/˘··· |
| firm hand, | 2 | ·· |
| Forth issue then in copious golden jets, | 11 | ·/˘··/˘˘/˘· |
| Sparkles from the wheel. | 5 | /˘··· |
| The scene and all its belongings, how they seize and affect me, | 15 | ·····˘/˘····˘/· |
| The sad sharp-chinn’d old man with worn clothes and broad | 11 | ··········· |
| shoulder-band of leather, | 6 | /˘··/˘ |
| Myself effusing and fluid, a phantom curiously floating, now here | 19 | ·/····/˘·/˘/˘˘˘/˘·· |
| absorb’d and arrested, | 6 | ˘/·˘/˘ |
| The group, (an unminded point set in a vast surrounding,) | 14 | ···········˘/˘ |
| The attentive, quiet children, the loud, proud, restive base of the streets, | 17 | ·˘/˘/˘/˘···/˘···· |
| The low hoarse purr of the whirling stone, the light-press’d blade, | 13 | ······/˘····· |
| Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold, | 16 | ˘/˘/˘/·/˘·/˘/˘·· |
| Sparkles from the wheel. | 5 | /˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.