SOURCE: A review of The Sound I Listened For, in The New York Times Book Review, July 9, 1944, p. 26.

In the following review, Troubetzkoy offers a mixed assessment of The Sound I Listened For, and compares Francis to Henry David Thoreau, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson.

Robert Francis writes lyrics which in essential spirit spring clearly from New England rock. Like Bryant, he has developed a moral attitude from nature, but his didacticism is lighter and less insistent. Like Thoreau, he has derived his philosophy from an intimacy with the same source, though he scarcely attains the same breadth of vision. Like Frost, he has found ample material for song and essay in the lean New England countryside and character. This is not to say that Mr. Francis writes in imitation, for it well may be a case of environment rather than heredity.

Robert Francis is a confident and...