'bosom' is unisex tho, men have chests too, but not boobies

because the common use of it nowadays means "breasts", the lyrics were written over a hundred years ago, that does not mean that that was the most common usage at the time or the intended one

They're not contrarian, bosom can refer to breasts but that's not the only definition. I'm pretty sure it's not even the primary definition for the majority of the word's existence.

I don't really want to link a bible site but take your pick and search for the word. 50+ references and it rarely meant boobs. It meant...the area of hugging. How could a man put his hands between his tits? Cradling a child is holding it in your bosom. A baby doesn't suck milk from bosoms.

Bosom meant the chest area even if it generally only used to mean breasts nowadays.

And the second is heart, which is much more fitting in the context.

It's used quite often to mean chest. It's a fill in for saying "breast", which is usually meaning "inside one's chest, near to their heart".

There's a quote attributed to Albert Einstein though I found no source to which is "Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools", which shows this application.

Shakespear also has Isabella say in Measure for Measure, act 2 scene 2 "Go to your bosom: knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.", which seems most accurately to be describing the chest more vaguely.

I think that these two show how 'in [one's] bosom' often poetically means 'near [one's] heart", or 'close to [one's] chest'. The chest isn't the point of sentence, it's more a reference point for describing the actual subject location.

The Battle Hymn of the Republic mentions Jesus's boobs, then.

"Seio" in Portuguese means "breast" and is used to refer to boobs.

Sein also means breast in french

Thailand's national anthem is smuttier, then, since it talks about holding Thai people in boobs, not just an abstract concept like liberty!