Travel
I should like to rise and go
Where the golden apples grow;--
Where below another sky
Parrot islands anchored lie,
And, watched by cockatoos and goats,
Lonely Crusoes building boats;--
Where in sunshine reaching out
Eastern cities, miles about,
Are with mosque and minaret
Among sandy gardens set,
And the rich goods from near and far
Hang for sale in the bazaar;--
Where the Great Wall round China goes,
And on one side the desert blows,
And with the voice and bell and drum,
Cities on the other hum;--
Where are forests hot as fire,
Wide as England, tall as a spire,
Full of apes and cocoa-nuts
And the negro hunters' huts;--
Where the knotty crocodile
Lies and blinks in the Nile,
And the red flamingo flies
Hunting fish before his eyes;--
Where in jungles near and far,
Man-devouring tigers are,
Lying close and giving ear
Lest the hunt be drawing near,
Or a comer-by be seen
Swinging in the palanquin;--
Where among the desert sands
Some deserted city stands,
All its children, sweep and prince,
Grown to manhood ages since,
Not a foot in street or house,
Not a stir of child or mouse,
And when kindly falls the night,
In all the town no spark of light.
There I'll come when I'm a man
With a camel caravan;
Light a fire in the gloom
Of some dusty dining-room;
See the pictures on the walls,
Heroes fights and festivals;
And in a corner find the toys
Of the old Egyptian boys.
Literary Analysis
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Summary
Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem begins with a wish that feels spontaneous and childlike: the wish to rise up and go somewhere far away, to a world of dazzling landscapes, foreign cities, and perilous adventure. The poem moves in a series of imagined destinations, each one more vivid than the last, as if the speaker is leafing through a map of the world and selecting places by their strangeness, color, and mystery. The journey is not realistic travel so much as dream travel, built from vivid images of islands, deserts, jungles, and ancient ruins.
As the poem progresses, that wandering desire develops into something more personal and retrospective. The final stanza narrows the scale dramatically: the speaker imagines arriving not simply in distant lands, but in the remains of an abandoned city, where evidence of human life lingers in rooms, walls, and forgotten toys. The closing movement gives the poem its emotional weight, turning from motion and spectacle toward memory, loss, and curiosity about what survives after civilizations have faded. The central tension lies in the fact that the speaker longs for escape and adventure, yet is equally drawn to stillness, ruin, and the traces of ordinary life left behind.
Theme
- Wanderlust - The poem is driven by an intense desire to leave home and move toward the unknown, presenting travel as a form of longing rather than a practical plan.
- Imagination and fantasy - The places in the poem are filtered through a romantic imagination, so the journey becomes a dream of vivid scenes rather than a literal itinerary.
- Exoticism and distance - Millay fills the poem with faraway landscapes, animals, and cities, using distance to create wonder, though the poem also reveals how travel can be shaped by romanticized perception.
- Curiosity about civilization - The final images suggest fascination with human history, with cities, artifacts, and the remains of past cultures inviting contemplation.
- Mortality and decay - The abandoned city at the end hints that all grandeur fades, and that what remains of human life may be only traces, objects, and ruins.
- Childlike wonder - The poem's exuberant catalog of places and things gives it a wide-eyed energy, as if travel were an extension of childhood imagination and play.
Literary Devices
- Repetition - The repeated opening phrase creates momentum and emphasizes the speaker's restless desire to keep moving from one imagined place to another.
- Cataloging - The poem strings together a long list of destinations and details, producing a sense of abundance and making the world seem immense and alluring.
- Imagery - Millay relies on bright, concrete images such as animals, deserts, walls, and bazaars to make each location feel immediate and enticing.
- Alliteration - Repeated initial consonants add musicality and help some lines linger in the ear, reinforcing the poem's lyrical, wandering movement.
- Rhyme - The steady end-rhymes give the poem a buoyant, singsong quality that supports its sense of adventurous delight.
- Enjambment - The lines often flow into one another without pause, mirroring the continuous forward motion of travel and thought.
- Contrast - The poem moves from lively, populated scenes to a deserted city, creating a strong contrast between movement and stillness, life and aftermath.
Symbolism
- Golden apples - These suggest an almost mythical reward at the far edge of the world, symbolizing desire, beauty, and unreachable abundance.
- Camel caravan - The caravan stands for old-world travel and deliberate movement through harsh terrain, suggesting a journey shaped by endurance and imagination.
- Bazaar - The marketplace can symbolize cultural exchange, motion, and the mingling of distant goods and peoples.
- Great Wall - The wall suggests human effort to mark, protect, and define civilization against the vastness beyond it.
- Deserted city - The abandoned city symbolizes the afterlife of civilization, where human achievement survives only as silence and remnants.
- Toys - The forgotten toys in the final stanza symbolize lost childhoods and the intimate traces that outlast public history.
Tone
Millay's tone is playful, eager, and enchanted, as she lets the poem move with the energy of a wish spoken almost aloud. Yet the mood shifts from excitement to a quieter, more haunting feeling by the end, when the imagined journey arrives at ruins and forgotten objects. The result is a blend of delight and melancholy: the poem celebrates the lure of distant places while also reminding the reader that all travel, like all human making, leads eventually to time's shadow.
Historical Context
Millay wrote within the early twentieth-century lyric tradition, where strict meter and rhyme often coexist with modern restlessness and individual yearning. Her work frequently combines musical form with a voice that feels immediate, intimate, and self-aware.
The poem also reflects a long literary fascination with distant places, ruins, and the romance of exploration. At the same time, its remembered world of bazaars, deserts, and ancient cities belongs to an era when travel writing and poetry often treated far-off cultures as scenes of wonder, a tendency modern readers may notice as part of the poem's historical moment.
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