How bracing 'tis to breast the billows high
To plunge beneath the foaming, hissing spray,
To watch the broad expanse 'twixt sea and sky
Emerging fresh and cool on hottest day:
Delightful, too, to watch the lovely shapes
Of females splashing, dashing in the brine,
In costume that artistically drapes
And renders more pronounced the "form divine."
Why not? The men enjoy the bracing dip.
Their sense of beauty gratified as well.
"Honi soit," etcetera's the tip --
Life's none too sunny: Do not break the spell.
So let the "carping critics" who declaim
Mixed bathing is unseemly, gross and wrong
Know where no harm's meant where can be the blame,
And think before they "cast the stone along."
First published in The Melbourne Punch, 20 January 1908
Author: nothing is known about the author of this poem.
Author reference sites: Austlit.
To plunge beneath the foaming, hissing spray,
To watch the broad expanse 'twixt sea and sky
Emerging fresh and cool on hottest day:
Delightful, too, to watch the lovely shapes
Of females splashing, dashing in the brine,
In costume that artistically drapes
And renders more pronounced the "form divine."
Why not? The men enjoy the bracing dip.
Their sense of beauty gratified as well.
"Honi soit," etcetera's the tip --
Life's none too sunny: Do not break the spell.
So let the "carping critics" who declaim
Mixed bathing is unseemly, gross and wrong
Know where no harm's meant where can be the blame,
And think before they "cast the stone along."
First published in The Melbourne Punch, 20 January 1908
Author: nothing is known about the author of this poem.
Author reference sites: Austlit.
See also.
