Boulogne by W. S. Gilbert

Illustration by Gilbert

Of all the snug places where hardworking races rush every summer, a
	crop of em,
I think you will own that delightful Boulogne may be said to stand quite at
	the top of 'em.
It's conveniently near, and it's not over dear, so your purse won't want
	much re-imbursing;
You can sit on a bench and learn how to speak French, just from hearing
	the natives conversing.
It has halls and two piers, and plump British young dears, and sands,
	theatre, picnics, and races;
Then it's clean and it's bright, and, oh! different quite from our
	commonplace watering-places!
It was once two days' sail, but the South-Eastern mail goes so quick that
	it isn't thought, now, far.
You can say, too, you've been on the Continent seen-though, of course,
	you need never say how far!
		Though other towns can boast of crowns,
			I think you'll freely own,
		For bathing rare, and breezy air,
			There's nothing like Boulogne!

If you're French in your taste, you can pull in your waist, and imbibe, till all
	consciousness ceases,
Absinthe and Vermouth, with the Boulonnais youth, and play billiards like
	mad for franc pieces —
You can sit in a café with gents rather raffy — a weed in your teeth you
	can make fast,
And French training to show, take grapes, soup, and Bordeaux at
	twelve-thirty, and call it a breakfast!
Or, if you incline to tea rather than wine (British dishes your mind,
	perhaps, takes to),
You will find over here very good bitter beer, and chops, buns, and roast
	beef, and rump steaks, too!
You can row, fish, or ride, or go bathing beside, in a dress rather given to
	ripping,
Or sit down on the pier, which costs nothing (not dear), and talk out, like a
	tar, on the shipping!
		Though other towns can boast of crowns,
			I think you'll freely own,
		For bathing rare, and breezy air,
			There's nothing like Boulogne!

And although it seems strange, and beyond British range, to behold in all
	decentish weather,
Pretty modest young maids and tall strapping young blades side by side
	in the water together;
Yet we soon get to see, though startling it be, we need find no important
	alarm in it —
For they manage it so that in couples they go, and there's sorrow a tittle
	of harm in it.
Each girl wears a dress that a prude would confess is most proper to
	wear, and each fellow
In a striped trouser-shirt, which fits tight (but don't hurt) like a fisher's in
	MASANIELLO.
They splash and they plunge, and they dive and they lunge, and they float
	and they jump, and they dance, they do;
For in all bathing matters they beat us to tatters — They manage them
	better in France, they do!
		Though other towns can boast of crowns,
			I think you'll freely own,
		For bathing rare, and breezy air,
			There's nothing like Boulogne!

The Etablissement balls, and the dresses and shawls, and the brandy
	— they've always the best of it;
The marvelous dresses, the yellow dyed tresses, vandyked petticoats,
	and the rest of it.
Those old dogs of nineteen, who the world must have seen, they so
	patronise, cherish, and foster us;
Those reckless nerve-shockers, in gay knickerbockers, and legs which
	are simply preposterous.
Then the brave fisher girls, in their earrings and curls, and their smiles
	when you go to buy shrimps of 'em;
And their marvelous legs, like mahogany pegs, and their wonderful caps
	and the crimps of 'em!
And their singular talk as together they walk — never linguist attained at
	the case of them —
And their jackets in stripes, and their crosses and pipes, and their
	petticoats down to the knees of them!
		Though other towns can boast of crowns,
			I think you'll freely own,
		For bathing rare, and breezy air,
			There's nothing like Boulogne!