AYRE: ‘Poor quim me am, bleak father. Forgive me, bleak father. The ’eaven is wild. Torn athunder so bad, so bad, we fain to live.’ [‘I am a poor empty womb, stern Father. Forgive me, stern Father. The heavens are so wild, so violent that we are afraid to live.’]

MELORNE: [yelling] ‘Ye child, dry quim. Ye rack o’ truth I boil, this loam boil ’cos o’ me profoundest outcastin’. [With high emotion] Outcastin’! [Crying at the sky] Rack ’n’ cat, rack ’n’ cat!’ [‘You, child, you have a dry cunt. I am racked by the truth of it all. I am upset, the soil is upset, because I am in exile. Exiled! The sky sounds like whipping!’]

‘Ye blind! Ye blind! Now, foresooth, ye can eye me pain o’ outcastin’. Ye pain goldy sow o’ me tarse!’ [‘You are blind. Only now can you see the pain I feel at my exile. You are the corrupted sperm of my cock.’]

[as though in his second childhood] ‘Bleak outcastin’, a blub, blub, blub.’ [‘Terrible exile, a blub, blub, blub.’]

‘True treasure o’ quim ’n’ tarse! [‘Honest fruit of womb and cock!’]

‘Nowt more outcastin’! Nowt more!’ [‘No more exile! No more!’]

‘Joyful quim! Joyful tarse! Joyful bird! Joyful goldy sow! Joyful day!’ [‘Joyful womb! Joyful cock! Joyful bird! Joyful goldmine! Joyful day!’]

‘Joy o’ loam.’ [Quietly] Nowt more outcastin’! Nowt more.’ [‘Joyful soil. No more exile! No more.’]

pp.19-20 AYRE: ‘O tell me, bird, t’ where is yer goin’? O tell me, what is yer want t’ hear? [Smiling at the two men] New chums. Skittle o’ chance has yer to this spot,
here, down in a fine of dark.’ [‘You’re new arrivals. Chance and accident has brought you to this spot, this place hidden deep in the country.’]

I cup me ear t’ the glommen bird. Soul o’ the dead. Cryin’ out, ‘Donna burst ’er ’eart, the bird is me!’ No rack ’n’ cat. Heavenbirth. [I listen to the night bird. He is the soul of the dead. He is singing to me, ‘Don’t be alarmed, I am what is singing.’ The bird is no demon. Born in heaven.]