The poem 'Travel'

If you could travel by anything (boat, ship, plane, train, bus), which would you choose? People travel for work, holidays, business, or pilgrimage (like a trip to Kedarnath, or the Hajj). The second text in Unit 4 is a short poem, 'Travel', by the American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. It has three stanzas.

Stanza 1, day: "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." (She hears every train!)

Stanza 2, night: "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." Cinders are burning bits thrown up by a steam engine's fire, glowing in the dark.

See the contrast: the day is loud, yet she still hears the train; the night is still (quiet), yet she still hears it. Nothing, neither noise nor quiet, can keep the train out of her mind!

Stanza 3, the turn: "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."

The key word is Yet. She's happy; her friends are the best she'll ever have. And still she'd hop on any train, going anywhere! Her longing to travel isn't an escape from something bad; it sits beside a life she enjoys.

The rhyme scheme is ABAB: away/day, speaking/shrieking; by/sky, dreaming/steaming; make/take, knowing/going. The repeated line "there isn't a train goes by" shows her fascination with trains.

The tone is excited and eager, not sad. She never complains, and she never actually leaves!