My observation about L6 will not be billable, I am sure. I think the magic derives from "and then" in that line. Though the phrases are identical, those little words serve as a bridge, and a bridge goes from one place to another. The result, as you aptly put it, is a change in pitch or tenor. The separation of the two phrases also helps conjure up the actual owl cry as it hits the ear two times in a row, in a sequence of time. Brilliant.
About the two RW poems I posted: I'll state it outright now. I posted them because I feel they are almost spoiled by sentimentality -- that, in these two instances, RW did not achieve the fine balance (as he does in The Writer) of being both tender and pointed. Let me elaborate (even though I quail, for this is Richard Wilbur, after all, and I am not worthy).
In the poem about impending spring, after an onslaught of involving, mysterious, even menacing images, the doggone sweetness of the final line hits with a resounding thud. It seems almost funny, and I doubt that humor was intended here. I think the problem is not the idea being stated (that the new life brought forth by spring is accomplished with violence) but the word "flowers" itself. Flowers, flowers -- it's a flowery word, and somewhat silly on the tongue and in the ear. The word just doesn't resonate anymore. It's been overused in Hallmark-caliber verse (where it rhymes, of course, with showers or bowers) and on Madison Ave ("Say it with flowers," a slogan of long duration). RW is a great enough poet to "buy back" a squandered, overused word, to be sure, but it doesn't happen here, I don't think.
Boy at the Window is so sweetly sentimental, it seems the poetic equivalent of vanilla pudding. A snowman weeping tears for the little boy who sculpted him! I think a certain idea was in the air around the time this poem was written -- the idea of "the tears of things." Michael, Alan -- perhaps one of you knows the origin of it? It was a favorite concept of one of my college professors. The older I get, the more I think "the tears of things" is an idea best left unexplored!
I liked this poem once, though -- enough to include it in a college paper about two poems that "animated the inanimate" (the other being James Dickey's The Sheep Child). RW is such a good poet that even his less-successful efforts usually contain much to admire.
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