--for my
children, I would have them keep their dis-
tance
from the thickening center; corruption
Never has
been compulsory. --
And he warns:
-- be in
nothing so moderate as in love of man,
A clever
servant, insufferable master.
There is
the trap that catches noblest spirits. --
Can there really be love without wisdom?
Attraction, surely; even, affection. But love? Can there be love of country
without knowledge of a country's history? These are the kinds of questions
implicit in his work. In "Cassandra," he evokes the Trojan prophetess, bids
caution again, even in our approach to "poets-laureate,"
"inaugural poets," etc.:
"Truly men hate
the truth; they'd liefer
Meet a tiger on
the road.
Therefore the
poets honey their truth with lying."
Such words do not sit well with literary
establishments--then or now. Before the Second World War, Jeffers was one of
America's most celebrated poets, his handsomely rugged face adorning a 1932 cover
of TIME. That was a safe bet for conservative ultra-millionaire publisher,
Henry Luce. Jeffers' creds were even better than Eliot's: a theology
professor's son, he had learned Greek, Latin and Hebrew as a boy and burnished
his early education with three years in Germany and Switzerland--all before
entering the University of Western Pennsylvania at fifteen. At 19, his affair
with another USC student, the beautiful and very-much married Una Call Custer,
had been sensationalized in a 1913 LOS ANGLELES TIMES article, "Two Points of
the Eternal Triangle." Very publicly, they had tried to break off their
relationship, Una traveling to Europe for a year while Robinson "drifted into
idleness" without her, but somehow managing to collect his thoughts and sentiments
in his first book. They were married within seven months of Una's return, and,
soon after, settled in Carmel-by-the-Sea, where Jeffers and their two sons
would later build, stone by stone, their famous "Tor House."
He had been through crises and overcome. His
genius could not be denied; his erudition shone through his straight-forward
lines. In the midst of the Great Depression, Jeffers' resilient, indefatigable
spirit was worthy of Luce's and the nation's emulation and celebration.
But, his prophetic, truth-speaking side could
not be purchased for fame or money. In "Woodrow Wilson," in 1924, he wrote:
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