Cupid's Arrows
He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse;He purchased raiment and forbore to pay;He stuck a trusting junior with a horse,And won gymkhanas in a doubtful way.Then, 'twixt a vice and folly, turned asideTo do good deeds and straight to cloak them, lied.
Words in this poem
- drank n.
- Wild oats, or darnel grass. See Drake a plant. [Cf. 3d Drake.]
- lied n.
- A lay; a German song. It differs from the French chanson, and the Italian canzone, all three being national. [G.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cupid's Arrows is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, Cupid's Arrows, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/cupid-s-arrows.html, id L20303.
Form and metre
Cupid's Arrows is 6 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCC. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABABCC coarseA · payB · horseA · wayB · asideC · liedC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| He drank strong waters and his speech was coarse; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| He purchased raiment and forbore to pay; | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/·· |
| He stuck a trusting junior with a horse, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And won gymkhanas in a doubtful way. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Then, 'twixt a vice and folly, turned aside | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| To do good deeds and straight to cloak them, lied. | 10 | ·········· |
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.