Travel

The train is perhaps the biggest symbol and metaphor in the poem. Symbolically, it not only represents progress and expansion, but it also represents freedom and movement. It is the counter and the answer to the speaker’s stasis, yet it is always moving far in the distance. Contextually, it signifies the key to mobility and freedom, with current place and situation rendering it inaccessible for the speaker. It is both persistent and even unsettling (Millay uses “shrieking” [Line 4] to describe it). It entices and startles. Perhaps it is the inner voice of the speaker, themself.

Place plays a fundamental symbolic role in “Travel.” In its literal sense, it is both a destination to and a coveted departure from somewhere. For male writers at the time, it was unbridled territory. For the speaker in “Travel,” place is static, with the exception of night and day. Agency within it is non-existent. With the birth of a new day, the cycle of longing begins. Everything is prevalent in the daylight, signifying the speaker’s isolation even amongst others. The nightscape is a dream of access. The train is the only seam weaving in and out of the fragmented times of day.