[Long pause]
FIRST VOICE
The music of the spheres is heard distinctly over Milk
Wood. It is 'The Rustle of Spring.'
SECOND VOICE
A glee-party sings in Bethesda Graveyard, gay but m***led.
FIRST VOICE
Vegetables make love above the tenors
SECOND VOICE
and dogs bark blue in the face.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard belches in a teeny hanky and chases
the sunlight with a flywhisk, but even she cannot drive
out the Spring: from one of the finger-bowls a primrose
grows.
SECOND VOICE
Mrs Dai Bread One and Mrs Dai Bread Two are sitting
outside their house in Donkey Lane, one darkly one plumply
blooming in the quick, dewy sun. Mrs Dai Bread Two is
looking into a crystal ball which she holds in the lap of
her dirty yellow petticoat, hard against her hard dark
thighs.
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
Cross my palm with silver. Out of our housekeeping money.
Aah!
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
What d'you see, lovie?
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
I see a featherbed. With three pillows on it. And a text
above the bed. I can't read what it says, there's great
clouds blowing. Now they have blown away. God is Love, the
text says.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE (Delighted)
That's our bed.
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
And now it's vanished. The sun's spinning like a top.
Who's this coming out of the sun? It's a hairy little man
with big pink lips. He got a wall eye.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
It's Dai, it's Dai Bread!
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
Ssh! The featherbed's floating back. The little man's
taking his boots off. He's pulling his shirt over his
head. He's beating his chest with his fists. I le's
climbing into bed.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
Go on, go on.
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
There's two women in bed. He looks at them both, with his
head c***ed on one side. He's whistling through his teeth.
Now he grips his little arms round one of the women.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
Which one, which one?
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
I can't see any more. There's great clouds blowing again.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
Ach, the mean old clouds!
[Pause. The children's singing fades]
FIRST VOICE
The morning is all singing. The Reverend Eli Jenkins, busy
on his morning calls, stops outside the Welfare Hall to
hear Polly Garter as she scrubs the floors for the
Mothers' Union Dance to-night.
POLLY GARTER (Singing)
I loved a man whose name was Tom
He was strong as a bear and two yards long
I loved a man whose name was d***
He was big as a barrel and three feet thick
And I loved a man whose name was Harry
Six feet tall and sweet as a cherry
But the one I loved best awake or asleep
Was little w**** Wee and he's six feet deep.
O Tom d*** and Harry were three fine men
And I'll never have such loving again
But little w**** Wee who took me on his knee
Little w**** Wee was the man for me.
Now men from every parish round
Run after me and roll me on the ground
But whenever I love another man back
Johnnie from the Hill or Sailing Jack
I always think as they do what they please
Of Tom d*** and Harry who were tall as trees
And most I think when I'm by their side
Of little w**** Wee who downed and died.
O Tom d*** and Harry were three fine men
And I'll never have such loving again
But little w**** Wee who took me on his knee
Little w**** Weazel is, the man for me.
REV. ELI JENKINS
Praise the Lord! We are a musical nation.
SECOND VOICE
And the Reverend Jenkins hurries on through the town to
visit the sick with jelly and poems.
FIRST VOICE
The town's as full as a lovebird's egg.
MR WALDO
There goes the Reverend,
FIRST VOICE
says Mr Waldo at the smoked herring brown window of the
unwashed Sailors Arms,
MR WALDO
with his brolly and his odes. Fill 'em up, Sinbad, I'm on
the treacle to-day.
SECOND VOICE
The silent fishermen flush down their pints.
SINBAD
Oh, Mr Waldo,
FIRST VOICE
sighs Sinbad Sailors,
SINBAD
I dote on that Gossamer Beynon. She's a lady all over.
FIRST VOICE
And Mr Waldo, who is thinking of a woman soft as Eve and
sharp as sciatica to share his bread-pudding bed, answers
MR WALDO
No lady that I know is
SINBAD
And if only grandma'd die, cross my heart I'd go down on
my knees Mr Waldo and I'd say Miss Gossamer I'd say
CHILDREN'S VOICES
When birds do sing hey ding a ding a ding
Sweet lovers love the Spring...
SECOND VOICE
Polly Garter sings, still on her knees,
POLLY GARTER
Tom d*** and Harry were three fine men
And I'll never have such
CHILDREN
ding a ding
POLLY GARTER
again.
FIRST VOICE
And the morning school is over, and Captain Cat at his
curtained schooner's porthole open to the Spring sun tides
hears the naughty forfeiting children tumble and rhyme on
the cobbles.
GIRLS' VOICES
Gwennie call the boys
They make such a noise.
GIRL
Boys boys boys
Come along to me'.
GIRLS' VOICES
Boys boys boys
Kiss Gwennie where she says
Or give her a penny.
Go on, Gwennie.
GIRL
Kiss me in Goosegog Lane
Or give me a penny.
What's your name?
FIRST BOY
Billy.
GIRL
Kiss me in Goosegog Lane Billy
Or give me a penny silly.
FIRST BOY
Gwennie Gwennie
I kiss you in Goosegog Lane.
Now I haven't got to give you a penny.
GIRLS' VOICES
Boys boys boys
Kiss Gwennie where she says
Or give her a penny.
Go on, Gwennie.
GIRL
Kiss me on Llaregyb Hill
Or give me a penny.
What's your name?
SECOND BOY
Johnnie Cristo.
GIRL
Kiss me on Llaregyb Hill Johnnie Cristo
Or give me a penny mister.
SECOND BOY
Gwennie Gwennie
I kiss you on Llaregyb Hill.
Now I haven't got to give you a penny.
GIRLS' VOICES
Boys boys boys
Kiss Gwennie where she says
Or give her a penny.
Go on, Gwennie.
GIRL
Kiss me in Milk Wood
Or give me a penny.
What's your name?
THIRD BOY
d***y.
GIRL
Kiss me in Milk Wood d***y
Or give me a penny quickly.
THIRD BOY
Gwennie Gwennie
I can't kiss you in Milk Wood.
GIRLS' VOICES
Gwennie ask him why.
GIRL
Why?
THIRD BOY
Because my mother says I mustn't.
GIRLS' VOICES
Cowardy cowardy custard
Give Gwennie a penny.
GIRL
Give me a penny.
THIRD BOY
I haven't got any.
GIRLS' VOICES
Put him in the river
Up to his liver
Quick quick Dirty d***
Beat him on the b**
With a rhubarb stick.
Aiee!
Hush!
FIRST VOICE
And the shrill girls giggle and master around him and
squeal as they clutch and thrash, and he blubbers away
downhill with his patched pants falling, and his
tear-splashed blush burns all the way as the triumphant
bird-like sisters scream with b***ons in their claws and
the bully brothers hoot after him his little nickname and
his mother's shame and his father's wickedness with the
loose wild barefoot women of the hovels of the hills. It
all means nothing at all, and, howling for his milky mum,
for her cawl and b***ermilk and cowbreath and welshcakes
and the fat birth-smelling bed and moonlit kitchen of her
arms, he'll never forget as he paddles blind home through
the weeping end of the world. Then his tormentors tussle
and run to the c***le Street sweet-shop, their pennies
sticky as honey, to buy from Miss Myfanwy Price, who is
c***y and neat as a puff-bosomed robin and her small round
b***ocks tight as ticks, gobstoppers big as wens that
rainbow as you suck, brandyballs, winegums, hundreds and
thousands, liquorice sweet as sick, nougat to tug and
ribbon out like another red rubbery tongue, gum to glue
in girls' curls, crimson coughdrops to spit blood,
ice-cream comets, dandelion-and-burdock, raspberry and
cherryade, pop goes the weasel and the wind.
SECOND VOICE
Gossamer Beynon high-heels out of school The sun hums down
through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of
her heart and buzzes in the honey there and couches and
kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast.
Eyes run from the trees and windows of the street,
steaming 'Gossamer,' and strip her to the nipples and the
bees. She blazes naked past the Sailors Arms, the only
woman on the Dai-Adamed earth. Sinbad Sailors places on
her thighs still dewdamp from the first mangrowing
c***crow garden his reverent goat-bearded hands.
GOSSAMER BEYNON
I don't care if he is common,
SECOND VOICE
she whispers to her salad-day deep self,
GOSSAMER BEYNON
I want to gobble him up. I don't care if he does drop his
aitches,
SECOND VOICE
she tells the stripped and mother-of-the-world big-beamed
and Eve-hipped spring of her self,
GOSSAMER BEYNON
so long as he's all cucumber and hooves.
SECOND VOICE
Sinbad Sailors watches her go by, demure and proud and
schoolmarm in her crisp flower dress and sun-defying hat,
with never a look or lilt or wriggle, the butcher's
unmelting icemaiden daughter veiled for ever from the
hungry hug of his eyes.
SINBAD SAILORS
Oh, Gossamer Beynon, why are you so proud?
SECOND VOICE
he grieves to his guinness,
SINBAD SAILORS
Oh, beautiful beautiful Gossamer B, I wish I wish that you
were for me. I wish you were not so educated.
SECOND VOICE
She feels his goatbeard tickle her in the middle of the
world like a tuft of wiry fire, and she turns in a terror
of delight away from his whips and whiskery conflagration,
and sits down in the kitchen to a plate heaped high with
chips and the kidneys of lambs.
FIRST VOICE
The music of the spheres is heard distinctly over Milk
Wood. It is 'The Rustle of Spring.'
SECOND VOICE
A glee-party sings in Bethesda Graveyard, gay but m***led.
FIRST VOICE
Vegetables make love above the tenors
SECOND VOICE
and dogs bark blue in the face.
FIRST VOICE
Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard belches in a teeny hanky and chases
the sunlight with a flywhisk, but even she cannot drive
out the Spring: from one of the finger-bowls a primrose
grows.
SECOND VOICE
Mrs Dai Bread One and Mrs Dai Bread Two are sitting
outside their house in Donkey Lane, one darkly one plumply
blooming in the quick, dewy sun. Mrs Dai Bread Two is
looking into a crystal ball which she holds in the lap of
her dirty yellow petticoat, hard against her hard dark
thighs.
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
Cross my palm with silver. Out of our housekeeping money.
Aah!
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
What d'you see, lovie?
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
I see a featherbed. With three pillows on it. And a text
above the bed. I can't read what it says, there's great
clouds blowing. Now they have blown away. God is Love, the
text says.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE (Delighted)
That's our bed.
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
And now it's vanished. The sun's spinning like a top.
Who's this coming out of the sun? It's a hairy little man
with big pink lips. He got a wall eye.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
It's Dai, it's Dai Bread!
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
Ssh! The featherbed's floating back. The little man's
taking his boots off. He's pulling his shirt over his
head. He's beating his chest with his fists. I le's
climbing into bed.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
Go on, go on.
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
There's two women in bed. He looks at them both, with his
head c***ed on one side. He's whistling through his teeth.
Now he grips his little arms round one of the women.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
Which one, which one?
MRS DAI BREAD TWO
I can't see any more. There's great clouds blowing again.
MRS DAI BREAD ONE
Ach, the mean old clouds!
[Pause. The children's singing fades]
FIRST VOICE
The morning is all singing. The Reverend Eli Jenkins, busy
on his morning calls, stops outside the Welfare Hall to
hear Polly Garter as she scrubs the floors for the
Mothers' Union Dance to-night.
POLLY GARTER (Singing)
I loved a man whose name was Tom
He was strong as a bear and two yards long
I loved a man whose name was d***
He was big as a barrel and three feet thick
And I loved a man whose name was Harry
Six feet tall and sweet as a cherry
But the one I loved best awake or asleep
Was little w**** Wee and he's six feet deep.
O Tom d*** and Harry were three fine men
And I'll never have such loving again
But little w**** Wee who took me on his knee
Little w**** Wee was the man for me.
Now men from every parish round
Run after me and roll me on the ground
But whenever I love another man back
Johnnie from the Hill or Sailing Jack
I always think as they do what they please
Of Tom d*** and Harry who were tall as trees
And most I think when I'm by their side
Of little w**** Wee who downed and died.
O Tom d*** and Harry were three fine men
And I'll never have such loving again
But little w**** Wee who took me on his knee
Little w**** Weazel is, the man for me.
REV. ELI JENKINS
Praise the Lord! We are a musical nation.
SECOND VOICE
And the Reverend Jenkins hurries on through the town to
visit the sick with jelly and poems.
FIRST VOICE
The town's as full as a lovebird's egg.
MR WALDO
There goes the Reverend,
FIRST VOICE
says Mr Waldo at the smoked herring brown window of the
unwashed Sailors Arms,
MR WALDO
with his brolly and his odes. Fill 'em up, Sinbad, I'm on
the treacle to-day.
SECOND VOICE
The silent fishermen flush down their pints.
SINBAD
Oh, Mr Waldo,
FIRST VOICE
sighs Sinbad Sailors,
SINBAD
I dote on that Gossamer Beynon. She's a lady all over.
FIRST VOICE
And Mr Waldo, who is thinking of a woman soft as Eve and
sharp as sciatica to share his bread-pudding bed, answers
MR WALDO
No lady that I know is
SINBAD
And if only grandma'd die, cross my heart I'd go down on
my knees Mr Waldo and I'd say Miss Gossamer I'd say
CHILDREN'S VOICES
When birds do sing hey ding a ding a ding
Sweet lovers love the Spring...
SECOND VOICE
Polly Garter sings, still on her knees,
POLLY GARTER
Tom d*** and Harry were three fine men
And I'll never have such
CHILDREN
ding a ding
POLLY GARTER
again.
FIRST VOICE
And the morning school is over, and Captain Cat at his
curtained schooner's porthole open to the Spring sun tides
hears the naughty forfeiting children tumble and rhyme on
the cobbles.
GIRLS' VOICES
Gwennie call the boys
They make such a noise.
GIRL
Boys boys boys
Come along to me'.
GIRLS' VOICES
Boys boys boys
Kiss Gwennie where she says
Or give her a penny.
Go on, Gwennie.
GIRL
Kiss me in Goosegog Lane
Or give me a penny.
What's your name?
FIRST BOY
Billy.
GIRL
Kiss me in Goosegog Lane Billy
Or give me a penny silly.
FIRST BOY
Gwennie Gwennie
I kiss you in Goosegog Lane.
Now I haven't got to give you a penny.
GIRLS' VOICES
Boys boys boys
Kiss Gwennie where she says
Or give her a penny.
Go on, Gwennie.
GIRL
Kiss me on Llaregyb Hill
Or give me a penny.
What's your name?
SECOND BOY
Johnnie Cristo.
GIRL
Kiss me on Llaregyb Hill Johnnie Cristo
Or give me a penny mister.
SECOND BOY
Gwennie Gwennie
I kiss you on Llaregyb Hill.
Now I haven't got to give you a penny.
GIRLS' VOICES
Boys boys boys
Kiss Gwennie where she says
Or give her a penny.
Go on, Gwennie.
GIRL
Kiss me in Milk Wood
Or give me a penny.
What's your name?
THIRD BOY
d***y.
GIRL
Kiss me in Milk Wood d***y
Or give me a penny quickly.
THIRD BOY
Gwennie Gwennie
I can't kiss you in Milk Wood.
GIRLS' VOICES
Gwennie ask him why.
GIRL
Why?
THIRD BOY
Because my mother says I mustn't.
GIRLS' VOICES
Cowardy cowardy custard
Give Gwennie a penny.
GIRL
Give me a penny.
THIRD BOY
I haven't got any.
GIRLS' VOICES
Put him in the river
Up to his liver
Quick quick Dirty d***
Beat him on the b**
With a rhubarb stick.
Aiee!
Hush!
FIRST VOICE
And the shrill girls giggle and master around him and
squeal as they clutch and thrash, and he blubbers away
downhill with his patched pants falling, and his
tear-splashed blush burns all the way as the triumphant
bird-like sisters scream with b***ons in their claws and
the bully brothers hoot after him his little nickname and
his mother's shame and his father's wickedness with the
loose wild barefoot women of the hovels of the hills. It
all means nothing at all, and, howling for his milky mum,
for her cawl and b***ermilk and cowbreath and welshcakes
and the fat birth-smelling bed and moonlit kitchen of her
arms, he'll never forget as he paddles blind home through
the weeping end of the world. Then his tormentors tussle
and run to the c***le Street sweet-shop, their pennies
sticky as honey, to buy from Miss Myfanwy Price, who is
c***y and neat as a puff-bosomed robin and her small round
b***ocks tight as ticks, gobstoppers big as wens that
rainbow as you suck, brandyballs, winegums, hundreds and
thousands, liquorice sweet as sick, nougat to tug and
ribbon out like another red rubbery tongue, gum to glue
in girls' curls, crimson coughdrops to spit blood,
ice-cream comets, dandelion-and-burdock, raspberry and
cherryade, pop goes the weasel and the wind.
SECOND VOICE
Gossamer Beynon high-heels out of school The sun hums down
through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of
her heart and buzzes in the honey there and couches and
kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast.
Eyes run from the trees and windows of the street,
steaming 'Gossamer,' and strip her to the nipples and the
bees. She blazes naked past the Sailors Arms, the only
woman on the Dai-Adamed earth. Sinbad Sailors places on
her thighs still dewdamp from the first mangrowing
c***crow garden his reverent goat-bearded hands.
GOSSAMER BEYNON
I don't care if he is common,
SECOND VOICE
she whispers to her salad-day deep self,
GOSSAMER BEYNON
I want to gobble him up. I don't care if he does drop his
aitches,
SECOND VOICE
she tells the stripped and mother-of-the-world big-beamed
and Eve-hipped spring of her self,
GOSSAMER BEYNON
so long as he's all cucumber and hooves.
SECOND VOICE
Sinbad Sailors watches her go by, demure and proud and
schoolmarm in her crisp flower dress and sun-defying hat,
with never a look or lilt or wriggle, the butcher's
unmelting icemaiden daughter veiled for ever from the
hungry hug of his eyes.
SINBAD SAILORS
Oh, Gossamer Beynon, why are you so proud?
SECOND VOICE
he grieves to his guinness,
SINBAD SAILORS
Oh, beautiful beautiful Gossamer B, I wish I wish that you
were for me. I wish you were not so educated.
SECOND VOICE
She feels his goatbeard tickle her in the middle of the
world like a tuft of wiry fire, and she turns in a terror
of delight away from his whips and whiskery conflagration,
and sits down in the kitchen to a plate heaped high with
chips and the kidneys of lambs.