How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today? (13-15)
See, the problem is, after you've done all this awesome exploring, you have to haul your butt back home. And that's one long trip. Probably pretty boring, too. So is traveling worth all that effort? Is there a better way to spend one's time? Those are fair enough questions, and they lead our speaker to wonder if she would have been better off at home, thinking about waterfalls, rather than seeing them.
Quote #2
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around? (18-20)
The speaker calls the desire to explore the world "childish." Or, to be more exact, she asks if this desire is childish. It seems like she's torn. Which is understandable. These are some big questions she's tackling.
Quote #3
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful? (22-25)
Here the speaker lists the things she might see while exploring the world. She might see "inexplicable" stonework, but it will be "always, always delightful." It sounds like she's starting to express some pro-travel sentiments here. After all, stonework is delightful! And what's better than delight? In fact, maybe "delight" is the answer to all of the speaker's questions. Maybe we do things because they delight us, rather than because they have some deeper meaning. But do you think that a search for delight is reason enough to travel to the other side of the globe? Should there be a greater, nobler purpose to jetsetting?
Quote #4
But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink. (30-34)
Now the list of delightful things grows. The speaker would have been sad to miss out on the beautiful trees and their strange gestures. She's starting to think about all of the things she would have missed out on if she stayed at home, and maybe it's all those little things that are reason enough to get up off your couch and go get a stamp in your passport.
Quote #5
—Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages. (47-52)
Here the speaker thinks back on the mismatched tones of the clogs and the ornate birdcage. They're not just beautiful and delightful. These things inspire her to think about some pretty deep stuff. When you travel, you get to make surprising connections between things. New experiences allow you to connect clogs and birdcages, and who knows what else. Maybe that's the real reason we take to the open road.
Quote #6
"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?" (60-67)
Despite the fact that she's listed a whole lot of good things to come from her world exploration, the conclusion of the poem is still up in the air. (Though, to understand why we hypothesize that the poem ends on a pro-travel note, check out what we've got to say in "Summary".) Bishop refuses to give us any easy answers to her questions about world travel. Foiled again!