This is the night mail crossing the border,

Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,

The shop at the corner and the girl next door,

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb-

The gradient's against her but she's on times.

Past cotton grass and moorland boulder,

Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,

Snoring noisily as she passes

Silent miles of wind-bent grasses;

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,

Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches;

Sheepdogs cannot turn her course,

They slumber on with paws across;

In the farm she passes no one wakes

But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.

Dawn freshens, the climb is done.

Down towards Glassglow she descends

Towards the stream tugs, the glade of cranes

Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces

Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.

All Scotland waits for her;

In the dark glens, beside the pale-green sea lochs,

Men long for news.

Letters of thanks, letters from banks,

Letters of joy from the girl and boy,

Receipted bills and invitations

To inspect new stock or visit relations,

And applications for situations,

And timid lovers' declarations,

And gossip, gossip from all the nations,

News circumstantial, news financial,

Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,

Letters from uncle, cousins and aunts,

Letters to Scotland from the South of France,

Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands,

Notes from overseas to the Hebrides;

Written on paper of every hue,

The pink, the violate, the white and the blue,

The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring,

The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,

Clever,, stupid, short and long,

The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

Thousands are still asleep

Dreaming of terrifying monsters

Or a friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's;

Asleep in working Glassglow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,

Asleep in granite Aberdeen.

They continue their dreams

But shall wake soon and long for letters.

And none will hear the postman's knock

Without a quickening of the heart,

For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

W.H. Auden (1907 - 1973) was a leading British poet and playwright of the 20th century, who deeply influenced the literary scene of his time. He was also a writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological and religious subjects. He wrote various documentary films and plays.

1. gradient: incline
2. moorland boulder: upland, highland rock or stone
3. shovelling: moving, scooping
4. snorting: grunting, exhaling, breathing out
5. slumber: sleep, doze
6. descend: move down, come down
7. tugs: small stoutly powerful steamers used to tow other vessels
8. yelping down: bark
9. glade: clearing, open space
10. gigantic: huge, extremely large
11. lochs: word for lakes used in Scotland English; it also means a narrow extension of the sea which may be partially landlocked
12. circumstantial: inferred or with full details
13. outpouring: expression, outburst
14. monsters: fiends, giants