WH Auden's Night Mail Re – Visited

editor's comment:- this was recently re-discovered by by an Audlemite in his "attic", and since poetry corner is apparently no longer part of the Audlem Festival we decided to publish again after some 15-20 years!

WH Auden Night Mail Re-Visited

This is the e-mail crossing the nations,
Speeding our lines of communications.
Every hour of the day and night,
Sending out files at the speed of light.
Files of joy, files of grief,
Full of misspellings that beggar belief.
Files that bore, files that astound,
Files corrupted and files not found.
Twenty-first century instant papyrus,
Sending out picture or message ... or virus.

This is the e-mall direct to your house,
Messages sent at the click of a mouse.
Some for the rich, some for the poor,
One for the girl on the seventh floor.
E-mails erotic, e-mails kinky,
Sent from an unknown address in Helsinki.
Files transmitted which no-one can trace,
Microsoft Outlook has lost them in space.
Message from Windows designed to confute,
Terminal error: shut down and re-boot.

This is the e-mail crossing the ocean,
Bringing impatience, dismay, commotion.
Messages tetchy, messages terse,
Messages threatening mayhem or worse.
Messages often transmitted in rage,
Venom-laced messages, fresh on the page.
E-mails impertinent, e-mails noble,
E-mails transmitted in error to "global"
Messages large, messages small,
Messages sent (what a blunder!) to all.
Everyone now knows you're planning to pounce,
On that delectable girl from Accounts.
One fatal click; it's too late to call back,
Can't retrieve e-mails from out of a sack.
Microsoft programs will never relent,
Once they've informed you the message is sent.

Badly typed e-mails flooding the nation,
Capital letters and punctuation
Sacrificed to the Gods of Velocity,
Written by those with less sense than precocity.
Under-aged and over-sexed,
Brought up on msgs snt by txt.
Words without poetry, words without glamour,
Sentences lacking a vestige of grammar.
Brilliant device for transmission of data,
Nothing to say except "CU L8R"
Reading such messages makes my heart bleed,
Why is our mother tongue murdered for speed?
This is the e-mall crossing the coast,
Send it back by first-class post.