I am as a weed

Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iii. Stanza 2.

Ill weede growth fast.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. x.

An ill weed grows apace.

George Chapman (1557-1634): An Humorous Day's Mirth.

When the gray-hooded Even,

Like a sad votarist in palmer's weed,

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 188.

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed

That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Hamlet. Act i. Sc. 5.

Pernicious weed! whose scent the fair annoys,

Unfriendly to society's chief joys:

Thy worst effect is banishing for hours

The sex whose presence civilizes ours.

William Cowper (1731-1800): Conversation. Line 251.

O thou weed,

Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet

That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Othello. Act iv. Sc. 2.