Poem of the Day.... Do you love getting a letter? A real old fashioned through- the - post - not - junk mail- actually - handwritten letter? Its a treat and a joy and sadly one which happens less and less often these days. I am a letter writer and so I love getting them back! This poem is one of the most famous ever - actually written as a promo for the Royal Mail. There is a great clip on You Tube of the original advert! Here it is - note the train- like rhythm and meter of the words .... Its brilliant! Night Mail by W H Auden 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 gradients against her, but shes on time. Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder Shovelling white steam over her shoulder, Snorting 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. Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course; They slumber on with paws across. In the farm she passes no one wakes, But a jug in the bedroom gently shakes. Dawn freshens, the climb is done. Down towards Glasgow she descends Towards the steam tugs yelping down 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 the 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 with faces scrawled in the margin, Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts, Letters to Scotland from the South of France, Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands Notes from overseas to Hebrides Written on paper of every hue, The pink, the violet, the white and the blue, The chatty, the catty, the boring, adoring, The cold and official and the hearts 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 of friendly tea beside the band at Cranstons or Crawfords: Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh, Asleep in granite Aberdeen, They continue their dreams, And shall wake soon and long for letters, And none will hear the postmans knock Without a quickening of the heart, For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 09:30:15 +0000
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