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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 June 2025
Jeffers's “Apology for Bad Dreams” (CP 1, 208–11; SP, 141–44), one of his most frequently cited and analyzed poems, opens with a forceful and memorable description of the beauty of the California coast.
In the purple light, heavy with redwood, the slopes drop seaward,
Headlong convexities of forest, drawn in together to the steep ravine. Below, on the sea-cliff,
A lonely clearing; a little field of corn by the streamside; a roof under spared trees. Then the ocean
Like a great stone someone has cut to a sharp edge and polished to shining. Beyond it, the fountain
And furnace of incredible light flowing up from the sunk sun. (CP 1, 208; SP, 141)
What initially appears to be a straightforwardly loco-descriptive poem shifts dramatically in its sixth line to an account of a disturbing event unfolding on the clearing below: a woman is punishing and beating a horse.
She had tied the halter to a sapling at the edge of the wood, but when the great whip
Clung to the flanks the creature kicked so hard she feared he would snap the halter; she called from the house
The young man her son, who fetched a chain tie-rope, they working together
Noosed the small rusty links round the horse's tongue
And tied him by the swollen tongue to the tree.
Seen from this height they are shrunk to insect size.
Out of all human relation. You cannot distinguish
The blood dripping from where the chain is fastened,
The beast shuddering […]
You cannot see the face of the woman. (CP 1, 208; SP, 141)
Immediately after depicting this painful scene at a distance, the narrator returns to a description of the natural backdrop against which the horse beating unfolds:
The enormous light beats up out of the west across the cloud-bars of the trade-wind. The ocean
Darkens, the high clouds brighten, the hills darken together. Unbridled and unbelievable beauty
Covers the evening world […] not covers, grows apparent out of it, as Venus down there grows out
From the lit sky. What said the prophet? “I create good: and I create evil: I am the Lord.”
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