Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Gulf-Weed

By Cornelius George Fenner (1822–1847)

A WEARY weed, tossed to and fro,

Drearily drenched in the ocean brine,

Soaring high and sinking low,

Lashed along without will of mine;

Sport of the spoom of the surging sea,

Flung on the foam afar and anear;

Mark my manifold mystery,—

Growth and grace in their place appear.

I bear round berries, gray and red,

Rootless and rover though I be;

My spangled leaves, when nicely spread,

Arboresce as a trunkless tree;

Corals curious coat me o’er,

White and hard in apt array;

’Mid the wild waves’ rude uproar,

Gracefully grow I, night and day.

Hearts there are on the sounding shore,

Something whispers soft to me,

Restless and roaming for evermore

Like this weary weed of the sea;

Bear they yet on each beating breast

The eternal type of the wondrous whole;

Growth unfolding amid unrest,

Grace informing with silent soul.