Night Mail

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, the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb;

The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder,

Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,

Snorting noisily, she passes Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,

Stare from 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.

Theme
The poet describes the journey of a coach that travels all night bringing mail which contains letters, postal orders, cheques for people who live in various parts of the land.

Sometimes the journey is a steep upward climb, sometimes it runs steadily on plains.Whether the railway track is an upward ascent or is a sloping descent, the night mailis always on time and follows the time schedule.

The grass land, cotton fields, moorland and the white clouds above, all pass byquickly and swiftly.

The birds stare at the approaching coach from their nests but the sheepdogs,unmindful of the noise of the mail coach, continue to slumber.

No one wakes up from slumber. Only a jug gently shakes as the coach passes by a

farm.