• Edna St. Vincent Millay

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 friends I make, And better friends I’ll not be knowing; Yet there isn’t a train I’d rather take, No matter where it’s going.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem Travel

travel by edna st. vincent

i see it as if the persona is trapped and wants to get out, she would take any train anywhere she could to get out. Also the persona cannot stop thinking about the train because they cannot stop thinking or wishing of how to get out. That is how i interpreted it.

travel by edna st. vincent

I read this poem as adventurous, like she was wanting to get out and she would go anywhere the train took her

travel by edna st. vincent

One further comment: When my wife and I moved to St. Louis from Oberlin so that I could do grad. work in Political Science at Washington University I found an apartment at 5877 Nina Place, St. Louis 12 (pre-zipcode). The mainline of the Wabash ran in a cutting right behind our apartment. I could watch many great trains, including The Wabash Cannonball and The Detroit Limited. We used both trains to get home to Michigan. We got off at Adrian. But enough! Millay again for sure.

The mainline of the Michigan Central ran right back of my high school. Every school day I heard The Wolverine (#17) go to Chicago from New York, The Michigan (#355) go to Chicago from Detroit. About the time school dismissed The New York Special (#44) went by from Chicago to New York. You can hear that train called out in Hitchcock’s “North By Northwest.” We cheered when we heard “Jackson” at the Michigan Theatre in the old hometown (where we still live). So, I like the poem because it’s about friends and trains and wishing I were on my way to the Windy City rather than in Chemistry Class. One can get rather too deep about literature! I am posting this from Houston, TX. I came here on what’s left of The Wolverine service and on The Texas Eagle (bus from Longview to Houston). We live in degraded times! No cinders, no steam, and a BUS to finish the journey. Good grief!

travel by edna st. vincent

I do feel a love of Trains and the sheer magic of Train Travel. I think the sadness may come from not a lack of personal fulfillment but from simply missing travelling on the train. Perhaps you have to be a train travel enthusiast to feel this.

travel by edna st. vincent

I’ve always seen the poem as more hopeful than that–that the narrarator wants to take every opportunity to follow there dreams, I never saw it as a sort of resigned, given-up-on-dreams feeling. That’s interesting.

travel by edna st. vincent

This poem always gives me the incredible feeling that the narrator feels as though they have missed out on their dreams. Now they are stuck, content, but stuck and their forgotten and missed dreams are manifest in the form of an imaginary train that never comes.

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Analysis: “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.

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More by this poet

Love is not all (sonnet xxx), sonnet iii: “mindful of you the sodden earth in spring”.

Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,     And all the flowers that in the springtime grow,     And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing The summer through, and each departing wing,     And all the nests that the bared branches show,     And all winds that in any weather blow,

Just a rainy day or two In a windy tower, That was all I had of you— Saving half an hour.

Marred by greeting passing groups In a cinder walk, Near some naked blackberry hoops Dim with purple chalk.

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Analysis of Travel

Edna st. vincent millay 1892 (rockland) – 1950 (austerlitz).

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 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.

Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

travel by edna st. vincent

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism  more…

All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

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travel by edna st. vincent

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950) was a poet and playwright and the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize. She began publishing poems while still in high school and earned a full scholarship to Vassar based largely on a single poem, called "Renascence." Part of a prominent group of artists and writers who lived in Greenwich Village, Millay was as famous for her bohemian lifestyle as for her writing. She spent the last half of her life entertaining fellow artists with her husband at Steepletop, their pastoral New York estate, which is now a National Historic Landmark.

travel by edna st. vincent

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Celebrate National Poetry Month with 'Travel' by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Celebrate National Poetry Month with 'Travel' by Edna St. Vincent Millay

It’s the 25th anniversary of National Poetry Month, a celebration of how a poets’ words can enchant, challenge, move, surprise, thrill, and uplift us — taking us somewhere previously uncharted in our imaginations.

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This poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay was written in 1921, a dramatic period in the United States. Both WWI and the Spanish Flu had concluded their dirty business, but Prohibition was in effect. And with their newly acquired right to vote, women began to assert themselves in other areas of life.

This poem captures that yearning for a different choice, a different view, a different adventure. Both wistful and forceful, it articulates the tension between the comfort of the familiar and the allure of what lies at the other end of tracks leading into the distance.

Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

  • 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 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.

About Edna St. Vincent Millay

Born in Rockland, Maine, in 1892, American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was a firecracker who read voraciously, believed in feminism, loved men and women with equal passion, and in 1923, was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. After graduating from Vassar in 1917, she moved to New York City’s Greenwich Village with her sister Norma, where they lived in a nine-foot-wide attic — smoking, drinking, playing gin rummy, and flirting with the other bohemians. She coined the phrase My candle burns at both ends in her poem First Fig , and won the Pulitzer Prize for The Ballad of Harp Weaver .

Read more about this remarkable woman at Poetry Foundation .

Listen to Edna St. Vincent Millay reading her poem The Ballad of Harp Weaver .

  • Watch the documentary Burning Candles: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay .

Top image courtesy of Alan Ren/Unsplash .

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COMMENTS

  1. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay was born in Rockland, Maine, on February 22, 1892. A poet and playwright poetry collections include The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver (Flying Cloud Press, 1922), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and Renascence and Other Poems (Harper, 1917) She died on October 18, 1950, in Austerlitz, New York.

  2. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay (Poem + Analysis)

    'Travel' by Edna St. Vincent Millay is a short three-stanza poem that is divided into sets of four lines, or quatrains. These sets of lines follow the rhyming pattern of abab cbcb dbdb. The poet has chosen to repeat the 'b' rhyme throughout this piece in an effort to create a sense of unity and continuity throughout the poem.

  3. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Travel. 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.

  4. Travel Summary and Study Guide

    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 ...

  5. Travel Poem Analysis

    Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "Travel" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

  6. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay. Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…. All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

  7. Travel

    Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay. 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.

  8. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Travel - The railroad track is miles away - The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets.

  9. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay, born in 1892 in Maine, grew to become one of the premier twentieth-century lyric poets. She was also an accomplished playwright and speaker who often toured giving readings of her poetry. All of that was in her public life, but her private life was equally interesting.

  10. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Classics Edna St. Vincent Millay. Travel. 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 ...

  11. What is the theme of "Travel" by Edna St. Vincent Millay?

    The theme of Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Travel" is wanderlust: a strong desire or impulse to travel. Millay uses the train as a symbol for traveling on to new adventures with new people ...

  12. Travel Poem Analysis

    Edna St. Vincent Millay. Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American poet and playwright. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, the third woman to win the award for poetry, and was also known for her feminist activism more…. All Edna St. Vincent Millay poems | Edna St. Vincent Millay Books

  13. Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Throughout much of her career, Pulitzer Prize-winner Edna St. Vincent Millay was one of the most successful and respected poets in America. She is noted for both her dramatic works, including Aria da capo, The Lamp and the Bell, and the libretto composed for an opera, The King's Henchman, and for such lyric verses as "Renascence" and the poems found in the collections A Few Figs From ...

  14. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950) was a poet and playwright and the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize. She began publishing poems while still in high school and earned a full scholarship to Vassar based largely on a single poem, called "Renascence."

  15. TRAVEL

    "Travel" by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) From Millay, Edna St. Vincent. Second April New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921. p. 33. [Page 33] TRAVEL 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,

  16. Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Edna St. Vincent Millay (February 22, 1892 - October 19, 1950) was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of her prose and hackwork verse under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.. Millay won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her poem "Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"; she ...

  17. Travel by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    "Travel" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, a read aloud with the text. Edna St. Vincent Millay lived from February 22, 1892 to October 19, 1950. She was an Americ...

  18. Celebrate National Poetry Month with 'Travel' by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    About Edna St. Vincent Millay. Born in Rockland, Maine, in 1892, American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay was a firecracker who read voraciously, believed in feminism, loved men and women with equal passion, and in 1923, was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in poetry.

  19. Poem

    Summary of Travel'Travel' by Edna St. Vincent Millay speaks of one narrator's unquenchable longing for the opportunity to escape from her everyday life. The ...

  20. "Travel," by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    poem--from The Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Modern Library 2002), edited by Nancy Mitford

  21. Edna St. Vincent Millay Questions and Answers

    In the following poem, I will put Chaos into 14 lines, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, and write a line-by-line analysis to find the meaning in each line. Identify one textual detail (a formal ...

  22. "Travel" by Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Rob Crisell recites "Travel" by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Sometimes you miss traveling most when you're not allowed to do it. This poem reminds me of "Sea Fev...

  23. Travel by Edna St Vincent Millay

    Part of the Classic Series published every Sunday from Helen: A Literary Magazine. Classic poems coming to life with visual imagery. "Travel" by Edna St. Vin...