Cupid and My Campasbe
Cupid and my Campasbe playedAt cards for kisses. Cupid paid.He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,His mother’s doves and team of sparrows.Loses them, too; then down he throwsThe coral of his lips, the roseGrowing on his cheek, but none knows how;With them the crystal of his brow,And then the dimple of his chin.All these did my Campasbe win.At last he set her both his eyes;She won and Cupid blind did rise.Oh, Love, hath she done this to thee!What shall, alas, become of me!
Words in this poem
- cupid
- The god of love, son of Venus; usually represented as a naked, winged boy with bow and arrow. [L.Cupido, fr. cupido desire, desire of love, fr. cupidus. See Cupidity.]
- dimple n.
- A slight natural depression or indentation on the surface of some part of the body, esp. on the cheek or chin. [Prob. a nasalized dim. of dip. See Dip, and cf. Dimble.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cupid and My Campasbe is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Every Child Should Know The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library, Project Gutenberg ebook #16436; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mary E. Burt, Cupid and My Campasbe, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/cupid-and-my-campasbe.html, id L25290.
Form and metre
Cupid and My Campasbe is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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.
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG playedA · paidA · arrowsB · sparrowsB · throwsC · roseC · howD · browD · chinE · winE · eyesF · riseF · theeG · meG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cupid and my Campasbe played | 8 | /˘·····˘ |
| At cards for kisses. Cupid paid. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| His mother’s doves and team of sparrows. | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Loses them, too; then down he throws | 8 | /˘······ |
| The coral of his lips, the rose | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Growing on his cheek, but none knows how; | 8 | /······· |
| With them the crystal of his brow, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And then the dimple of his chin. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| All these did my Campasbe win. | 7 | ······· |
| At last he set her both his eyes; | 8 | ········ |
| She won and Cupid blind did rise. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Oh, Love, hath she done this to thee! | 8 | ········ |
| What shall, alas, become of me! | 8 | ··˘/˘/·· |
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.