YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UqLquphxdU

Jubilate Balneis – Rejoice In The Bath

Let Poseidon preserve and protect me in the tub:
puff suds from my eyes and make my wrinkles merry;
keep thorny coral away and let sleeping sharks lie;
prevent the plug from popping prematurely.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For a bath brings the peace of the open sea, but warmer.
For a bath is a solitary place of solitude in a busy world.

Let the numerous Nereids keep cold enamel at bay
and guide treacherous bars of soap from underfoot;
ensure the taps are turnable by toes, that the water
falls piping hot from the faucet: let it steam the mirror.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For few wars have ever been started from a bath.
For great ideas are discovered there.

Lord Neptune, by your power prevent the miserly bath:
baths lasting less than an hour; baths where nipples sit
above the water line; baths over which a clock ticks.
Soak the clocks, Lord Neptune, and sponge the miser.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For the radio can be heard there, and books can be read.
For the telephone should not reach you.

Let God save those in peril in the bath: the elderly,
the infirm, the babes-in-arms – float them and ease them,
bubble around them and buoy them up, brace them
in your warm water embrace: keep them safe, always.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For water is a slow element, a long low element.
For the ancients knew of the bath.

Lake, loch, mere, tarn, hammer-pond, mill-pond, pool:
let these be a place in every house, hot and private.
Let those who spy on the bath, who knock on the door,
who interrupt the retreat be devoured by their own dogs.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For everyone should respectfully hide away and roughly soap.
For it is truly next to godliness.

Let the Great First Sea Lord see that I safely survive to see
the far shore of towels, the heaped dunes of towelling;
let me doze contentedly between chapters, the hum
of pipework playing its lapadaisical lullaby. Let it lull me.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For every submergement is a journey out of the day-to-day.
For the bather-explorer is pink and blessed.

Poseidon, Neptune, Triton have pity on those people
who have shower-rooms, with no space for a bathtub.
It is truly said ‘into every life a little rain will fall’.
May they visit hotels and spas and often and soon.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For a world of baths is a joyous place of distant splashing.
For even cats will perch on the bath rim, approving the idea.

Old Men of the Sea, and Goddesses of the Foam,
when my day comes take me to you. Let me slip
into long death in the bath, in the warm, like sleep.
Take me like Marat or Seneca, but with less fuss.

For a bath is a boat, with the water on the inside.
For the longest journeys have always happened there.
For it is dark outside the dripping window.