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 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.

~