It's Great When You Get In

They told me the water was lovely,

That I ought to go for a swim,

The air was maybe a trifle cool,

"You won't mind it when you get in"

So I journeyed cheerfully beach-ward,

And nobody put me wise,

But everyone boosted my courage

With an earful of jovial lies.

The Sound looked cold and clammy,

The water seemed chilly and gray,

But I hastened into my bathing suit

And floundered into the spray.

Believe me, the moment I touched it

I realized then and there,

That the fretful sea was not meant for me

But fixed for a polar bear.

I didn't swim for distance

I didn't do the crawl,

(They asked why I failed to reach the raft,

And I told them to hire a hall.)

But I girded my icy garments

Round my quaking limbs so blue,

And I beat it back to the bath house

To warm up for an age or two.

I felt like a frozen mummy

In an icy winding sheet.

It took me over an hour

To calm my chattering teeth.

And I sympathized with Peary,

I wept for Amundsen's woes,

As I tried to awaken some life in

My still unconscious toes.

So be warned by my example

And shun the flowing sea,

When the chill winds of September

Blow sad and drearily.

Heed not the tempters' chatter

Pass them the skeptics' grin

For the greatest bull that a boob can pull

Is "It's great when you get in."