| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907. | | | | The Dancing of the Sea | | By Sir John Davies (1570–1626) |
| | | FOR lo, the sea that fleets about the land! | |
| And like a girdle clips her solid waist; | |
| Music and measure both doth understand: | |
| For his great crystal eye is always cast | |
| Up to the moon, and on her fixèd fast: | 5 |
| And as she danceth in her pallid sphere | |
| So danceth he about his centre here. | |
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| Sometimes his proud green waves in order set, | |
| One after other flow unto the shore, | |
| Which when they have with many kisses wet, | 10 |
| They ebb away in order as before; | |
| And to make known his courtly love the more, | |
| He oft doth lay aside his three-fork’d mace, | |
| And with his arms the timorous earth embrace. | | | | |
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