"This is the night mail" - WH Auden

In the documentary "Night Mail" (1936), John Grierson narrates the opening scene with WH Auden's poem of the same name, "Night Mail." Auden wrote the poem specifically for the film.
Visit my channel for more films that quote poetry.
(No copyright infringment intended. I don't own the content of this video and make no money from it.)
To make the poem's rhythm better sound like a chugging train, Auden's text was slightly altered for the film. Its original version is provided here. This is one of my very favorite poems. I teared up the first time I heard it.
Night Mail
WH 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 gradient's against her, but she's 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 black-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 lochs
Men long for news.
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from 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 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 heart outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and printed and the spelt all wrong.
Thousands are still asleep
Dreaming of terrifying monsters,
Or of friendly tea beside the band at Cranston's or Crawford's:
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 postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can hear and feel himself forgotten?

[@dumptrump3788]

"Shoveling steam over her shoulder"....never has there been a more emotive description of a steam engine at speed.

[@forestdenizen6497]

White steam

[@noushitaisa]

Listen again >> Shoveling WHITE steam over her shoulder - now that's emotive. Adjectival imagery...

[@adamw2911]

@@noushitaisa This was a big deal back in the day. The physical effort of two men in the cab against the gradient, the heavy load, the conditions etc with time at a premium. Businesses and individuals relying on their efforts. This film captures that perfectly.

[@outpsycho5807]

lyrically better then the majority of mainstream rappers today lofl 1:32

[@zanelee4427]

Ik ahaha

[@LeonardoMaster2006]

I agree hehe

[@GamerCall]

All of them. No living rapper could lay claim to being an actual poet.

[@goldielocked7111]

You cannot be well versed in hip-hop, son@@GamerCall

[@goldielocked7111]

poets just don't rake in the big bucks, since the masses don't like poetry.. They like horny bragging

[@ledzeppelinrestores]

im so glad aphex twin sampled this and turned this into one of his songs

[@Insperato62]

First watched this at junior school over 60 years ago. Thought it wonderfully exciting and began a life long love of poetry.

[@petertelford5338]

Me too!!!!!!!!!!

[@lpsp442]

It's not just the reality of a rap from 1936, with crisp upper class elocution to the Queen's own English. It's the way that the music itself takes on a similar tone to much of rap music as well, that slight uncanny *d a n k* vibe as Auden lays down his rhymes. Worth a crown.

[@avidsquarehead]

Dude could spit some rhymes. For real.

[@humphreyspurser]

I've not seen dank styled like that since 2016

[@uzmamaya9304]

This is a top tier comment!

[@lpsp442]

@@uzmamaya9304 What a top-tier compliment - thank you, Uzma. ☺

[@yetidodger6650]

My grandma smoked opium to this.

[@AlanHowellphotovideo]

lol epic comment. The poem is a bit surreal, indeed, as were many of his poems.

[@oraaaaaaaaaaange]

Audibly laughed at this

[@suesmith3744]

4 yrs young but brilliant comment 👏🏻😂😂😂😂

[@anushr5e]

haha nice

[@zakatista5246]

Stare from the bushes at her blank faced coaches.

[@joericker5750]

This is pretty dank for 1936.

[@foodforthought1678]

Ikr

[@zanelee4427]

Ik ahaha

[@Thomas-yl8lb]

Rap music back in my day

[@batmansarah6325]

Yeah, coz the 1930s were a really light and carefree decade. A crushing Depression and heading into the biggest war in history. It is odd that the art wasn't lighter in general.

[@mckavitt13]

@@batmansarah6325 Good art is always a product of its time.

[@nachodoggy]

SICKEST FLOW

[@saminatariq561]

nacho doggy bro this is poem

[@saminatariq561]

nacho doggy half of it is in free verse

[@alientranslink6764]

@@saminatariq561 yea its poetry to the rhythm of a train moving, that's rap

[@roflcopter13373]

Damn that sheepdog diss was hard! He went in!

[@FourOFiveProductions]

WH auden spittin dat lethal shit, son!

[@leedent6796]

Eminem don't got shit on ole Wentworth Hawthorne Auden

[@danlefou]

The drummer is playing the four beats of coach wheels over rail joints, the strings are playing the 'Royal Scot' class loco's three-cylinder exhaust, and there's a guy rapping pentameters over it all. And, guess what - it works, brilliantly! What a classic.

[@PantheraTK]

Rhythm And Poetry

[@vinnievagabond]

MC Grierson spitting some Old School Britcore!

[@johnnybsteelriff]

Beautiful imagery and details from a bygone age...the "rap"is actually the metre of the words mimicking the clank of the wheels over the joins in the track.....

[@senianns9522]

Saw this as a kid in the late 50's! Still awesome and the nostalgia buzz is amazing!

[@verkaforever]

The best part is the third verse (starts at around 1;31). At the National Railway Museum in York, they have a screen that plays just that part, and there's a microphone and you have to try and say it as fast as the commentator. It is NOT easy!

[@MatthewCYN15]

Also, please tell me where's that microphone in the museum

[@basicallysnake]

1:31 for the moderns

[@handofoz6333]

The second verse...:wow:

[@alexcool4112]

"But who can bear to feel himself forgotten?"

[@deputyVH]

Last line is "For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?" I think.

[@TheRealBoroNut]

Me and the missus were the ones fast asleep in that farmhouse. Completely missed out on all of this at the time. Slept right through we did. Sixty two year we worked that farm, and never once woke in the night. Never got so much as a postcard neither. Never needed to. Tim Berners-Lee used to stop in our barn every weekend when he was an adventure scout so we was on the internet since 1948.

[@bradburyrobinson]

Did you receive any postal orders though?

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

I love this short poem of the LMS mail trains. It has a very beautiful vibe to it, following suit with the actual mail trains themselves. (although any train pulled by a Jubilee is a beautiful train!)

[@RockyRailroadProductions_B0SS]

***** It changes throughout the video. I saw a Scot (deflectors), a Princess, and a Jubilee.

[@ferrarif50sport]

the first rap song

[@Olivia-ki6pn]

ferrarif50sport its a poem not a rap

[@18skeltor]

Olivia Smith not sure exactly what you're implying, but it's wrong. Rap or not, this would not have been the first one.

[@tottenhamhotspurish]

Olivia Smith - You could class this as rap now.

[@goatwarrior3570]

Dunno, where do you draw the line between reciting a poem to a beat and rap music?

[@tottenhamhotspurish]

Rozzy Rozz - The word “Rap” describes this poem perfectly.

[@MrTinyUK]

I Never tire of this short. Brilliant. Thanks for sharing. ;-)

[@northsidedanz]

The best song of all time without question 😍😍

[@chaosinorderrr]

Certified BANGER! Finna bump this in my whip forreal

[@RowanTheAlien]

Big up to my boy Grierson for this absolute tune, true fire in the booth rite here.

[@sarahoubridge2759]

Auden's poetic commentary was actually narrated by Stuart Legg. John Grierson provided the dawn sequence as the Night Mail descends into Glasgow and then he returns with 'Thousands are still asleep to round the film off

[@theyoyo007117]

Man...Eminem ain't got nothing on this

[@davidhodgesmtl]

whoever remixes this will get massive youtube hits

[@MechaMento]

David Hodges soundcloud.com/user18081971/nightmail-1

[@hobbified]

Public Service Broadcasting did it on their 2013 album Inform - Educate - Entertain :)

[@paulbogan3400]

That's how I ended up here.

[@TechRedstone]

aphex twin

[@engineerskalinera]

Public Service Broadcasting.

[@swamilive]

And it only took 80 years for Aphex Twin to sample it :)

[@klarisdavis5486]

Here from Public Service Broadcasting's "Night Mail" song. Highly recommend!

[@julievanberkel3058]

Love this poem.I remember learning this at school.

[@julievanberkel3058]

I always loved this poem from school days.

[@lionprogaming3943]

I am form my school days

[@ghughesarch]

"Birds turn their backs as she approaches, [and] stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches" - this is a Post Office sorting train with the windows blanked out.

[@andrewbeadle1517]

This was our life before the internet, kids

[@andrewbeadle1517]

no..doing old fashion rap about trains

[@evewebber9563]

seriously, yeah imma go play some fortnite, seeya

[@TankEngine75]

Andrew Beadle I’m A Kid And I Already Know That And But I’m Thinking Why Most Of The People Watching This Like You Guys Don’t Know A Lot About Railways

[@MegaPikachu5]

I really don't understand this comment. Judging by your profile picture you are at least 40, steam engines were gone by the 70s though. Why do you feel the need to prove something anyway? Lets say you were around during the age of steam it doesnt mean you should try to prove that your youth was better because it had something which is honestly in better shape today than it ever was

[@TankEngine75]

@@MegaPikachu5 Sorry I Was Dumb Back Then Also Steam engines Are Still In Museums(And The Profile Pic Was Taken In The Internet So Sorry)

[@danermanerkider]

DROPIN Str8 barsz fam catch the mixtape wid this track dropen Sunday pure fire fuckin endless Savage no chill

[@DanMoxon1]

+danermanerkider best comment ever

[@awsome569]

+danermanerkider oh my god im crying thats jokes

[@ashleycrystal9719]

and they say white guys can't rap!

[@mikiboki8591]

white people used rap before the creation of rap , in medevial talk fight , rap is not a music , its chant, there is chant in chinese era too

[@kalpansarkar5938]

Shut up Mimi boki

[@U2QuoZepplin]

Poetry at its finest!!! 😱

[@rubeenasharma9377]

this was my fav poem during my school time love from NEPAL

[@xarynfields7902]

Don’t let anyone tell you Aphex Twin is not enriching music… Richard is a genius

[@ProjectFlashlight612]

This joint is fuckin' SICK, brahhh. Old school rhymes tight as piss.

[@classicpinball9873]

I'd be bumping this if I was in the 40s

[@roaenokesyzlak7828]

I used to fly along "the line" (route 24 in MA) to this on a routine basis. This song is, was and for ever will be the best song to leadfoot to.

[@Marzimus]

😍 Extended version!! This is great, but 1:24 is gold!

[@simplenough]

an english man from the '30s is a better rapper than 2 chains

[@HROM1908]

Phenomenally exciting and nostalgic.

[@Olivia-ki6pn]

I love this poem idk why I think it’s cuz I’m English we had to sing it and done a vid and we got to watch it😍 my line was “Letters for the rich,Letters for the poor the shop at the corner,the girl next door”

[@katamber9043]

I agree! This is on my playlist (my running one anyways)

[@AlanHowellphotovideo]

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 as she passes Silent miles of wind-bent grasses. Birds turn their heads as she approaches, Stare from 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 a bedroom gently shakes. Dawn freshens, Her climb is done. Down towards Glasgow she descends, Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen. All Scotland waits for her: In dark glens, beside pale-green lochs Men long for news. Letters of thanks, letters from banks, Letters of joy from girl and boy, Receipted bills and invitations To inspect new stock or to 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 on 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 the Hebrides Written on paper of every hue, The pink, the violet, the white and the blue, The chatty, the catty, the boring, the 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 of friendly tea beside the band in Cranston's or Crawford's: Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh, Asleep in granite Aberdeen, They continue their dreams, But shall wake soon and hope for letters, And none will hear the postman's knock Without a quickening of the heart, For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

[@ajaxengineco]

Thank you. Needed some lyrics for that fast bit. You did miss 'Notes from overseas to the Hebrides,' though.

[@tooboo48]

this should be in the charts

[@davidbaxter4910]

WEIRD, I REMEMBER STEAM Trains WELL. COLWYN BAY TO TAUNTON SCHOOL FROM 1954 UNTIL 1962. 6 TIMES A YEAR! I MUST BE OLD.. FORTUNATELY I AM STILL

[@davidbaxter4910]

MENTI COMPUS.

[@richs1852]

Dat flow, omg bruh, shiet's str8 fire dope

[@shenronsuper]

bro this is fire fr

[@NitroFury]

1936 Rap Song

[@heavenly4796]

Yeah

[@andreytalalov7279]

Beautiful video (even can be say the Opera). What a huge progress during the 20th century! Whether it will be continued in the 21st century??? How amazingly fast the time flows. Still alive people who remember those gorgeous trains (and I'm among them). Fast Mail Express never delay. Only green light on all the way. No time for refueling and firebox cleaning. A new loco for replacement is ready and waiting on rails... Nice pictures from my childhood...

[@kempodle4665]

1:33. Bruh.......

[@itgetseasierlessitry]

Time will never rust this engine, nor snatch from Auden his Rappers Crown.

[@defrow9032]

2022 gang

[@Baegus]

Anyone else coming from Aphex Twin?

[@JohnDoe-ne4kg]

λ

[@РусскийРусич]

Me 😂

[@pokemonplace8903]

John Doe *(7\)

[@qwertyTRiG]

I was looking for this, which I've known for years. I saw the Aphex Twin remix and gave it a try, but it was physically painful to listen to, so I shut it off and returned to the original. The Public Service Broadcasting remix is pretty good.

[@Eclipse1Gaming1]

Precisely.

[@chrisdoggsta]

True OG shit right here ! hahahah

[@xify2967]

Bro why isn’t this on spotift

[@LexTheDweeb]

i don't know, but spotift is in competition with spotify, so who knows...

[@sekerim1]

remember having to read this at school ...

[@hafizaltair3917]

1:33 to 1:44 (letter of thanks.....letters from bank.....letters of joy from the girl and the boy.....receipted bills and invitation to inspect new stock or visit relation and appication for situation and timid lovers' declaration and gossip gossip from all the nation.....) this awesome

[@theboybell]

Thanks for this! 12 Language really enjoyed it. Ben thought it was really really good at depicting the movement of a train

[@K2ELP]

That ice cold 30s flow ❄ 🥶

[@modelraildan2002]

One rapper Eminem is too afraid to diss

[@michaweinst3774]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this in the comments, but Benjamin Britten composed the music for this film, including (yes) this section.

[@Bammer2001]

The Trouble with Trains III...

[@tonyknox5252]

Where is the rest of this film, I remember the train going through the whole country

[@placeholdername4068]

Put it on speed 1.5 Just do it.

[@sruthisivaraj]

Put it on 2 speed 😂

[@sruthisivaraj]

And start at 1.31

[@knuckles1206]

put it on 2

[@LeonardoMaster2006]

*Nice.*

[@LuffyTaro486]

I have this poem in my School Book I like this poem a lot

[@buzby303]

‘Thousands are still asleep dreaming of terrifying monsters’... 😆

[@Ruby.dragon]

My whole class was laughing at 1:34😂

[@Votapardo]

Sorry, forgot to add that the last line actually is "For who can BEAR TO feel himself forgotten?"

[@alainakhan_]

we watched this in English class, and we were all vibing(even the teacher) lol. 1:32

[@mckavitt13]

The sound is better than the longer one I have just heard.

[@laceybates4810]

This is the only thing I know off by heart

[@Bammer2001]

1:56 *Written on paper of every hue. The pink, the violet, the white, and the blue.* 😝

[@wentonmastermind]

Baron Verulam - spot on, your Grace!

[@chrishenniker5944]

It just goes to show that the origin of hip hop isn't as cut and dried as people think, as there are loads of literary influences. I can include William S. Boroughs, W.H. Auden, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron, Percy Shelly, Ivor Cutler.

[@jamesmcgaugh2234]

aphex twin brought me here

[@gla9322]

james mcgaugh Encarta

[@MeetAlexChannel]

AFX.

[@Marzimus]

One of the greatest videos of all time. Where's the original!? 😱

[@101publicenemy]

straight fire cuh

[@WorldPartyOfficial]

Soundtrack by Benjamin Britten!

[@samhaywoodmusic]

This is so important! Should be in the video description...

[@glynrhys68]

yes agree @@samhaywoodmusic

[@CitizensAreaTransit]

Walter Cronkite could *NEVER*

[@clandestine919]

Rap is CULTURAL APPROPRIATION

[@suseonhwa]

+Joey Taylor it's hilarious because white people started rap with this, or perhaps an earlier predecessor

[@100drips]

+Joey Taylor lol, this was the best laugh i had since days man

[@credinzel6996]

@@suseonhwa There was 'flyting' which was used by european tribes from the 5th to 12th century? Which is when two parties exchanged insults in a poetic manner with some rythym?

[@carltrotter6532]

Back when Glasgow was the Industrial capital of the world - largest factory in the world (Singer sewing machine factory), producing 1/3rd of the shipping of the world (by tonnage), the largest locomotive works in the world, the countless inventions from the Mackintosh raincoat and the first viable steam engine (watt engine) to the television and air conditioning (pioneered by Thermotank in Clydebank). Not to mention the countless supplementary industries - from the world-famous Templeton's carpet firm which fitted out everything from Titanic to the White House to Shanks of Glasgow which produced the internationally exported ceramics. What halcynoid days - it must have been quite a thing to see.

[@anthonyinger2867]

I love the BBC English of the narrator, nowadays they don't care how they speak.

[@TheOneLichemperor]

On the contrary, I believe that they want to sound more like the "common folk" these days.

[@forestdenizen6497]

The narrator has a Scottish accent. The rapper is using RP though.

[@ayeshayousaf9114]

I really enjoyed it

[@joaosousa2506]

I'm here because a wikiquote page on devotion was selected randomly by it's algorithm when I wished to be on another page from Sartre's. This quote resonated with me and I got to his page: I never write when I’m drunk. Why should one need aids? The Muse is a high-spirited girl who doesn’t like to be brutally or coarsely wooed. And she doesn’t like slavish devotion - then she lies. W. H. Auden, in W. H. Auden, The Art of Poetry No. 17 Interviewed by Michael Newman I, curious, searched him on KZbin.

[@adambrydges1040]

BARS!!

[@nabicx]

DAMN FIRE

[@Stand_Up_2]

Sick beats man

[@emilywhalley8178]

Love this poem

[@maxpower9340]

It doesn't get any better than that! British invented rap

[@davidfaulkner4760]

Been up that way many times. Before the motorway and dual carriageway the winding roads cross that trains track. Highest point before the descent to Glasgow is Shap. Very little has changed.

[@PoetryETrain]

Thank you, added to a playlist...

[@ZenStarwalker]

Drops harder than the dust bowl

[@Adhansstuff]

dis beat is phat doe

[@protecriontundrastrategist73]

1930s british canadian raps about the mail train

[@johnm9845]

Canadian????