![]() The poem’s second section writes of the train’s descent into Scotland. Warmth and fondness about the train suffuse the poem. It is always on time despite the “steady climb” as it barely disturbs the countryside. The train itself is personified as a calm, methodical, and kind being, no mere bureaucratic functionary. The train brings a variety of letters to a variety of people. Auden was happy to embrace the new medium of film, as well as to tout the accomplishments of 1930s laborers, perhaps influenced by Karl Marx. A reader can almost hear the train chugging along as it brings the letters to the people of England and Scotland, especially in the first part, made up of eight rhymed, four-beat couplets. Auden is said to have written the verses with the aid of a stopwatch as he set them to the film. The rhythm of the film matches the train’s movement, and dreamy loneliness pervades much of it. ![]() ![]() The basic intent of the film, at least superficially, was to reveal how the mail was distributed by train. Lines were chopped and changed to fit the film. Auden’s poem was read toward the end of the film, set to music by Benjamin Britten. It was produced by GPO Film Unit, directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright, and narrated by John Grierson and Stuart Legg. The film concerned a London, Midland, and Scottish Railway (LMS) mail train traveling from London to Scotland. The charming poem “Night Mail” was written in 1936 to accompany the documentary film of the same year and the same title. Their hearts will pound when they hear the knock on the door of the postman, for “who can bear to feel himself forgotten?” Analysis They dream on, but they hope that when they awake they will have letters. They are asleep in Glasgow, asleep in Edinburgh. Thousands still sleep and dream and have nightmares. Some are typed, some are printed, some are misspelled. The letters have all tones and styles: catty, friendly, cold, boring, clever, stupid, long, short. There are letters of all sorts and for all people: receipts, invitations, applications, declarations of love, gossip from around the world, news both “circumstantial” and “financial,” letters from family members, letters with doodles in the margins, letters from all over Europe, letters of condolences, all written on papers of every color imaginable. There she heads toward dark furnaces set up like “gigantic chessmen.” All of Scotland craves her arrival, for the men want news. Passing one farm, the dwellers sleep on, but a jug “gently shakes.” Birds peer at her, and sheepdogs cannot make her alter her course. She noisily passes through the “silent miles” of grassland. ![]() She passes moors and boulders, her white steam flowing behind her. Though the way is steep, she is still on time. The train is crossing the border overnight with mail, bringing letters and checks and orders for rich and poor. ![]()
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