Classic Poem

Once of a mazy afternoon, beside that southern sea,
I watched a shoal of sunny beams come swimming close to me.
Each was a whited candle-flamelet, flickering in air;
Each was a silver daffodil astonied to be there;
Each was a diving summer star, its brightness come to lave;
And each a little naked spirit leaping on the wave.

And while I sat, and while I dreamed, beside that summer sea,
There came the fairest thought of all that ever came to me;
The tiny lives of tiny men, no more they seemed to mean
Than one of those sweet seeds of light sown on that water green;
No more they seemed, no less they seemed, than shimmerings of sky —
The little sunny smiles of God that glisten forth and die.