Miscast II
My heart is like a cleft pomegranateBleeding crimson seedsAnd dripping them on the ground.My heart gapes because it is ripe and over-full,And its seeds are bursting from it.
But how is this other than a torment to me!I, who am shut up, with broken crockery,In a dark closet!
Words in this poem
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
- crockery n.
- Earthenware; vessels formed of baked clay, especially the coarser kinds. [From Crock an earthen vessel.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Miscast II is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, Project Gutenberg ebook #1020; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Lowell, Miscast II, in Sword Blades and Poppy Seed (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1020, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lowell-amy-sword-blades/miscast-ii.html, id L08222.
Form and metre
Miscast II is 8 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.4 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My heart is like a cleft pomegranate | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Bleeding crimson seeds | 5 | /˘/˘· |
| And dripping them on the ground. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| My heart gapes because it is ripe and over-full, | 11 | ··········· |
| And its seeds are bursting from it. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| But how is this other than a torment to me! | 12 | ····/˘··/··· |
| I, who am shut up, with broken crockery, | 11 | ······/˘/˘˘ |
| In a dark closet! | 5 | ···/˘ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.