CHAPTER II. 



SEA-WEEDS. 



" The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, 



And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow, 

 From coral rocks the sea-plants lift 

 Their boughs where the tides and billows flow; 



" The water is calm and still below, 



For the winds and waves are absent there ; 

 And the sands are bright as the stars that glow 

 In the motionless fields of the upper air. 



" There, with its waving blade of green, 



The sea-flag streams through the silent water ; 

 And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen 

 To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter." 



PERCIVAL. 



SOMETHING of the loveliness which the poet de- 

 scribes may be beheld in the salt pools among the 

 rocks, those miniature seas which on some shores 

 present us with a little world of beauty. It would 

 be difficult to linger gazing into these hollows, 

 when the summer sun shines down upon them, 

 and through their clear waters we see the dense 

 silky tufts, or the waving branches of sea-weeds, 

 without forming some picture in the mind of the 

 scene presented by the ocean bed. But if we 

 could sail away a little from the shore, where the 

 water is clear and still, or yet better, if we could 

 glide over the blue waters where the base of a 

 deeper sea would reveal itself, we should espy 

 masses of vegetation grouped in graceful forms, 

 and intermingling their boughs together, like the 



