I thought that Auden made a creditable putt at this but nevertheless it needed improving!

 

Where is the Night Mail which once crossed the border

Which brought us our cheques and our postal orders

With bundles of letters for disembarcation

For sorting at depots next door to the station

An essential amenity served by the train

But post’s now transported by truck or by plane

A service long-gone to the wall

We don’t need the Night Mail at all.

 

No more will we witness the grab of the net

A spectacle lost that we no doubt regret

Whereby the express train would not need to stop

At stations on route to collect or to drop

But rather observe as they clutter the roads

Enormous red lorries with motorway loads

Make their daytime and overnight haul

We don’t need the Night Mail at all.

 

No clouds of white steam shovelled over her shoulder

But spectres more common, commercial and colder

The sight of a Jubilee steaming up Shap

Replaced by pantechnicons at Watford Gap

Delivering daily your parcel or letter

Adjudged by the management cheaper and better

Enabling the postie to call

We don’t need Night Mail at all.

 

Airmail from Spain, Bahrain, the Ukraine

The junk and the dross, discarded and tossed

Solicitors letters upholding the law

No need any longer to drop through your door

Letters from mates, our bills and our rates

From penpals who live in the United States

Which start, “Howdy do dere, y’all?”

We don’t need Night Mail at all.

 

A day to deliver from Essex to Kent

While e-mails arrive just as soon as they’re sent

Our cheques are not carried by physical traction

With banking now handled by online transaction

No more under threat from a theft on the tracks

We use direct debit and payment by BACCS

So farewell to the Castle and Hall

We don’t need the Night Mail at all, at all,

We don’t need Night Mail at all.