[In the mixed review of Cawdor and Other Poems below, Zabel praises Jeffers's technical skill as a poet but questions his detached treatment of such themes as fear and violence.]

The theme of Robinson Jeffers' new poem ["Cawdor"] is the tragedy of a woman who meets the passion and selfish pride of men on their own terms, but finds herself the victim of an unimagined lust whose end comes only with the hideous defeat of those who caused her own humiliation. Even this curt summary is sufficient to indicate that "Cawdor" shares with "Tamar," "Roan Stallion," and The Women at Point Sur those properties of tragic violence and broad dramatic conflict which we have come to regard as this poet's particular marks. The sensitiveness to all the forces of ancient terror, the infinite pathos of human blindness and vanity, and the strange unerring ways of biological and psychological life—these came out in that first obscure volume which gave us, five years ago, a new and remarkable writer. Since then it has become customary to think of Mr. Jeffers as the only one of our contemporary artists who has plunged bravely into the darkest waters of experience and found there the incalculable tides and currents which the Greeks tried to fathom. The comparison with Euripides has been inevitable, not only because of the subject-matter of these narratives, but also because of their style. And critics have even found occasion to point out the essential dissimilarity of Mr. Jeffers' work to that of the Greeks: its lack of real penetration, its barren spirit, its dearth of the pity which an instinct for scientific curiosity has denied him. Meanwhile Mr. Jeffers continues to write, probably quite un-influenced by the mandates of his readers and eager to complete a body of work which he outlined long ago and determined to see to its end.

It is not necessary to deny his work the truth and beauty which it unquestionably has. Any individual reader may fail to discover here a genuine reality, but that after all remains the failure of the individual reader. When work shows, as this does, ringing eloquence combined with a passionate search for honor, we are quite safe in crediting the author with some of the final attributes of genius. His shortcomings are to be credited largely to an age which has disestablished many of the relationships and laws whereby it was possible for former generations to think of life in terms of noble pity and grief. The very factors which make it possible for Mr. Jeffers to stand apart from our huge cities, our political warfare and our industrial vanity allow him to indulge in a kind of oracular aloofness. The disclosures of science have armed him with a seer-like omnipotence from which he looks down on the swarming efforts of man. He is not one of the struggling millions, like Sandburg or our other city poets. He is no road-side humanitarian, like Frost. Therefore he scorns to extend the hand of compassion to his creatures; he allows them to murder, to blind themselves, to wound and mutilate their bodies, and to break their fearful hearts.

When, in the course of his mounting drama, he stops to comment, it is with an almost disinterested candor:

The nerves of man after they die dream dimly
And dwindle into their peace; they are not very passionate,
And what they had was mostly spent while they lived.
They are sieves for leaking desire, they have many pleasures
And conversations; their dreams too are like that.

Or, translating science into a more fantastic imagery, he speaks with the calm demeanor of a laboratory worker:

In their deaths they dreamed a moment, the unspent chemistry
Of life resolving its powers; some in the cold star-gleam,
Some in the cooling darkness in the crushed skull.
But shine and shade were indifferent to them, their dreams
Determined by temperatures, access of air,
Wetness or drying, as the work of the autolytic
Enzymes of the last hunger hasted or failed.

The mistake behind this lies in the fact that, instead of writing poetry wholly in the spirit of modern reason and logic, he has endeavored to combine these factors with antique dramaturgy. His obsession for heroic violence and the grand passion of the Greeks furnishes him with wild and massive themes, and the comments of science seem very weak and puny in the midst of them. He wrote one masterpiece "The Tower Beyond Tragedy." The lesson in singleness of motive there presented has not served him very faithfully.

But "Cawdor" has passages of magnificence not often found in poetry today. Some of the early pictures of the Pacific coast and the redwood forests, the sweeping fires and gaunt ranges, are unforgettable. Where the ocean beats on the rocks three people hunt for sea-food:

And, since this is a narrative poem, it must be said that few others of our time can compare with it for technical skill. The interest is consistent, the movement certain, and the shaping coherent. The characters of Fera Martial and Cawdor suffer because they are charged with too much purpose and too futile a passion; but the girl Michal and the inviolate brother Hood are alive with sympathy, and the minor figures have much variety and picturesque charm. Certain details are worked out with a sure touch. At one point Fera goes dizzy:

And many incidents are amazingly sharp in definition.

There are shorter poems in this book, notably a fine elegy on George Sterling, which aid in showing Mr. Jeffers' complete mastery of his instrument. His line may often be regular blank-verse, but it can swell into a full diapason of great power.