Probably pointless ramble to follow...
I think if I hadn't been told this was Merrill I'd have strongly suspected it at line 3--"Which one today?" It's been years and years since I've read him, but that leaps out at me as characteristic Merrill, that odd way he has of chopping his lines up and crossing normal speech against the rhythm the poem wants. He never gives in either way, but forces--no, invites them to sort of vibrate against each other, interfere with each other's patterns. (Must be a better way to put that.)
The other duality that always gets me with Merrill is that play of depth and surface. He lavishes such attention on his surfaces you can feel them becomes depths. Does that make any sense?
-- I admit I keep thinking about the story of Auden dismissing him, seeing an early play and remarking, "This young man's got a secret, and he's going to keep it." The usual critical story would begin with something about reticence, maybe an Elizabeth Bishop reference, borrow a bit of Yeats's biography so Braving the Elements becomes a new Responsibilities--we so want this facile poet of surfaces to be like that one...
But as I said, there's something strange, even mysterious about Merrill's kaleidoscopic attention to surfaces--he never gave away his coat to walk naked. A poem like this one--you almost suspect something like Stevens's worldview at work, an immersion in the world itself, for itself, sufficiently real itself without the supernatural... And yet! We know Merrill was deeply drawn into just the sort of supernaturalism Yeats was! How does that all work?
And that's just it. One thing you feel, maybe from Braving the Elements on, is that he has chosen to trust himself and make his own way. He's not Yeats. He's not Stevens. He's not Bishop. He's what Merrill has made. (Something Whitmanlike there.)
I probably shouldn't write any of this, but talk about the words, so many very nice words in this poem, what a touch he had, the surprises, and so on.
I have to say, though, that I'm rambling because I was surprised how much I liked this, having been away from him so long, and I'm really overwhelmed by the way his life and art are almost completely fused, if I can say that. The triumphs and sorrows of each, the triumphs and sorrows of the other. He does become almost completely autobiographical, does he not? But more by making his life itself a successful work of art than simply (?!) "confessing" whatever happens to be his life. Oh I'm overstating it terribly, but maybe someone who sees what I mean will say it better...
Alright, far too much said...
Pat
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