The poem “Travel” (1921) by Edna St. Vincent Millay explores the desire to travel and explore around the time of industrial innovation in the early-20th century. The poem focuses on trains as the main means of travel, opportunity, and possibility in an otherwise static world. “Travel” also explores one’s relationship to local locale and community, one’s duty to remain where they’re from, and harboring the desire to discover something new.

The poem has 12 lines and contains a rhyme scheme. It has the likeness to a sonnet but diverts in structure of rhyme and number of lines, conveying three fractured scenes that separate the speaker from being fully immersed in the setting. This type of fragmentation fits into the art and literary movements at the time, like Modernism, and into the consciousness and disconnect also found in the Lost Generation post WWI.

Poet Biography

Born in 1892, Millay began writing at an early age and later attended Vassar College. After her studies, she moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and lived with her sister. She wrote poetry and plays, some of which focus on gender and attraction between members of the same sex. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1923 for her book of poems The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver. Millay died in 1950, at 58 years old (“Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets).

Millay is part of the Lost Generation and Modernist literary movement. Her writing and experiences developed post WWI, and she shared the desire to see more beyond her city, town, or country. Many became disenchanted with society and traditional values during this time. These individuals confronted the existential question of identity and social reassimilation after a war (“Lost Generation.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 27 Nov. 2019). Notable Lost Generation authors include Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, and Ernest Hemingway. These same writers fall into the Modernist literary movement, as well.

Millay’s poems juxtapose these attitudes with traditional poetic forms (most notably, sonnets and meter), but they also incorporate Modernist concepts into the relay of experience (“Edna St. Vincent Millay.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation).

Modernism began in the early-to-mid 20th century, most notably around the first World War and after it ended. Many Modernist writers rejected traditional poetic form; some utilized structures (like metered rhyme, sonnets) to convey a “fragmented vision” (“What Is Modernism?” The University of Toledo, Canaday Center, The University of Toledo).

Modernism also rejects and views European culture as outdated, corrupted, and superficial, as well as “moral and religious principles” spurred by the development of technology and science.

Other art mediums also reflect these burgeoning attitudes that rejected traditional methods that focused on the literal replication of a subject (“Modernism Characteristics.” History of Modernism, Miami Dade College).

Poem Text

The railroad track is miles away,

And the day is loud with voices speaking,

Yet there isn't a train goes by all day

But I hear its whistle shrieking.

All night there isn't a train goes by,

Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming,

But I see its cinders red on the sky,

And hear its engine steaming.

My heart is warm with the friends I make,

And better friends I'll not be knowing;

Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,

No matter where it's going.

St. Vincent Millay, Edna. “Travel.” 1921. Poets.org.

Summary

The first stanza establishes the setting, which is ambiguous in detail. It begins with the notion of train tracks far from the speaker’s view. In its place, however, is the presence of sound—the voices of people talking during the day. The speaker longs for the train that never comes; in its place, there is the “shriek” of the train’s whistle (Line 4).

The second stanza moves from sound to sight. The speaker remains static, observing from the same ambiguous space as in the first stanza. Now it is nighttime, and the community sleeps—all but the speaker, who still longs for the train. Its steam and glowing embers are only observable from a distance (Lines 7-8).

The third stanza creates a turn in the narrative (much in the way a sonnet does). Place remains ambiguous, especially from the present and future view. In this final stanza, the focus shifts from time of day to relationships: friendships in the speaker’s locale and those never met because the train never comes. Despite the connection to place and community, the poem ends with the itch to get on a train and travel away from where one is (Lines 9-12).