SOURCE: A review of Valhalla and Other Poems, in The New York Times Book Review, October 23, 1938, p. 10.

In the following review, Morton praises Francis's “Valhalla” as a narrative poem on the timeless theme of “a family seeking its heaven on earth.” He comments that, in the Depression era, this theme is particularly poignant.

The second book of a new poet is a crucial phenomenon—for poet, publisher and reader. Those who took special delight in Robert Francis's Stand With Me Here, two years ago, need have no misgivings about opening Valhalla. The first book was something more than promising; the second carries the achievement farther—and in a new direction. Valhalla is narrative, with narrative's first requisite, a good story. In any period of the world's affairs the vicissitudes of a family seeking its heaven on earth so deliberately, so persistently, so thoughtfully, would be provocative reading. At...