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LOVER BY FULL MOON, by             Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography

James Merrill’s poem "Lover by Full Moon" is a haunting and enigmatic meditation on vulnerability, transformation, and the mysterious interplay between the natural world and human experience. Through its vivid imagery and symbolic language, the poem explores the tension between surrender and control, between the known and the unknown, as the speaker contemplates a significant, possibly transformative moment.

The poem opens with a stark directive: "Before he undergoes / What he must, let all be stripped / And stifled in white gauze." These lines set the stage for a profound experience, one that requires the shedding of all external trappings and a retreat into a state of bare, almost clinical simplicity. The white gauze suggests a sense of purity or sterility, as if the subject is being prepared for something akin to surgery—an operation on both the physical and emotional self.

The image of a "silent / Luminous maw" creeping into position "high above" introduces an element of the surreal and the cosmic. This maw, possibly the full moon itself, is both a source of light and a devouring force, something that illuminates yet consumes. Its silence contrasts with its menacing, open presence, evoking a sense of inevitable confrontation with something larger than oneself. The moon, often associated with romantic and emotional tides, here takes on a more ominous role, overseeing the process that the subject must undergo.

As the poem continues, the focus shifts to the subject’s internal state: "Does he at last consent / To anything that may happen / During the operation?" This question probes the subject’s willingness to surrender to the unknown, to accept whatever changes or outcomes might arise from this intense experience. The operation here is metaphorical, representing a deep transformation or an irreversible moment of decision, one that requires complete submission.

The subject then turns to "a woman's face / For courage," indicating that this moment of transformation is not faced in isolation, but in the context of a relationship. The woman’s face serves as a source of strength and reassurance, a grounding presence amid the uncertainty of the impending change. However, this search for courage is immediately followed by an instruction: "let him then / Inhale this gas / Made by the cricket's voice / Acting on indigo oxygen."

The gas, produced by the cricket’s voice, introduces an element of natural mysticism. The cricket, often associated with nighttime and silence, becomes a conduit for a transformative substance—a gas that alters consciousness, made potent by the interaction with "indigo oxygen," a color that suggests both the deep night and a sense of melancholy or introspection. This gas, then, is not merely a physical anesthetic but a symbolic one, lulling the subject into a state where they can confront—or escape—the full implications of the transformation they are about to undergo.

"Lover by Full Moon" captures the moment of yielding to a powerful, perhaps fearsome, change, framed within the context of love, the natural world, and the mystical forces that shape human experience. Merrill's use of the full moon as both a witness and an agent of transformation, alongside the cricket's voice as a catalyst, creates a layered narrative about surrendering to the inevitable, the intersection of the natural and the personal, and the quiet, sometimes eerie, beauty of such moments.

The poem leaves the reader with a sense of both unease and wonder, as the subject prepares to undergo a process that is at once deeply personal and profoundly universal. The operation, whether literal or metaphorical, becomes a rite of passage—a moment where the self is stripped bare and made vulnerable to forces beyond its control, yet also poised on the brink of a new understanding or transformation.


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