Brim is an old poetical word for the sea. In the medieval nonsense poem the Land of Cokaygne (c. 1290), some nuns take of their clothes and
lepith dune in-to the brimme,
And doth ham sleilich for to swimme...
(leap down into the sea
And do them slyly for to swim)
Spenser uses "brim" to mean like a horizon:
The bright sunne, what time his fierie teme
Towards the westerne brim begins to draw.
But my favorite use so far is this little poeticism by Ben Jonson:
Swell me a bowl with lusty wine
Till I may see the plump Lyaeus swim
Above the brim;
I drink, as I would write,
In flowing measure, filled with flame and sprite.
-tb
