Amy Lowell’s “Miscast II” sets up a painful contrast between inner abundance and outer confinement. The speaker imagines her heart as a pomegranate split open, bleeding crimson seeds onto the ground. It is not empty or wounded in a simple way; it is “ripe and over-full,” so full of feeling that it cannot hold itself together. That image is lush, almost violent with color and life. But the second half turns inward: instead of standing in open air, she says she is “shut up, with broken crockery, / In a dark closet.” The feeling is one of being trapped with useless, jagged things while all her richness spills out unseen. The mood is tense and claustrophobic, mixing frustrated desire with a sense of waste—something vital is bursting, but no one is there to receive it.
Miscast II — Summary
My heart is like a cleft pomegranate Bleeding crimson seeds And 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!