Travel

The speaker narrates “Travel” from a first-person perspective and explores their relationship with place, as well as their inability to explore beyond one’s locality. The speaker’s identity is ambiguous—they have no name, no age, no gender, and no defined location. Based on the speaker’s inaccessibility to the train, as well as their focus on connections to community and friendship, one can infer the speaker is not male, especially with the restrictions on and expectations placed on women in the early-20th century. The speaker may be of no gender at all. The speaker does not appear to be a historical figure and is speaking from their present moment, which is held in the abstract. The choice of speaker ambiguity may be intentional on Millay’s part. It creates limitations and distance for the speaker without explicitly attaching to gender. The obscured or opaque identity also coincides with the existential questions many in the Lost Generation had about their home locale, purpose, and value system.

There is much ambiguity with the setting. Concrete details are sparse, with the exception of the train and the exhaust it emits. Perhaps, for the speaker, place is abstract because so little of it can be explored, and this creates an obsession. Place fragments into day and night; waking and dreaming, with the train sewing them together. The title itself brings the reader to the idea of movement, the opposite of stasis. This is ironic for the speaker, who hears the train in the distance, sees it on the horizon. However, it’s always just out of reach. The desire is so strong that the speaker is willing to leave the community behind in the search for it.

The tone remains consistent throughout the poem: forlorn and isolated in a disembodied space that is not technically empty but full of reminders of what the speaker cannot have. The speaker’s microcosm, or immediate world, is within the community; they can hear the voices of others in proximity. However, the speaker is alone, even in the presence of others—a feeling not unique in large cities and of being lost in the crowd. There is no indication of whether the people heard in the first stanza are friends or just those in the crowd. It is all auditory.

In addition, the question of why the speaker can’t leave is never answered. There is no explanation of what is holding them back, be it connected to money, marriage/family, or inequitable social limitations due to age, sex, or sexual orientation—topics Millay is known to tackle. For Millay, however, perhaps that isn’t the point. For the time the reader visits this ambiguous space, they begin to feel the limitation, desire, and frustration the speaker feels. She has let them in on an experience; through ambiguity, one can enter the experience regardless of their background or privilege, and that is enough.

The short, lyrical poem comprises three quatrains with end-rhyme. The rhyme scheme is ABAB CBCB DBDB. Millay also utilizes long vowel sounds, such as -i and -e, which are juxtaposed with the sounds of chatter, train whistles, and even silence.

Millay is most known for writing sonnets, and this poem shares similar qualities to and diverts from sonnet structure. The poem contains a mixture of 12 short and long lines, ranging from seven to 10 syllables. This length is common in the traditional English Sonnet structure, which seldom exceeds 12 syllables per line. Likewise, vocabulary ranges from one-to-two syllables, which adds to a “sing-song” simplicity and rhythm when read aloud. The rhythm and rhyme suggest innocence, which harkens to a more innocent time, whereas the content is steeped in experience, isolation, and loneliness.

Typically, English Sonnets contain 14 lines: three quatrains and a couplet. English Sonnets also follow a linear and consecutive rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD EFEF GG). Millay diverts from this format by eliminating the end couplet. She also continues the rhyme -b throughout the poem. This produces a literal and symbolic experience. Like the speaker waiting for the train, the rhyme scheme advances but ebbs back, stuck on the -b rhyme loop. While the rest of the rhyme scheme progresses in a forward motion, stasis is still constant in the structure. In terms of the traditional and missing couplets, like the train, they never arrive.

While there are many questions that never get answered for the reader, Millay addresses the concern of limitations in society—be they gender, race, or class—all of which impact a person’s chances at upward mobility. She confronts the question of power and ability—who has it and how far they can go when they have it.

Millay’s audience was most likely men and women of literary backgrounds and circles, progressive bohemians, Modernists, and burgeoning feminists. Much of her poetry focuses on gender, sexuality, and politics.