Cupid Stung
Cupid once upon a bedOf roses laid his weary head;Luckless urchin, not to seeWithin the leaves a slumbering bee.The bee awak’d--with anger wildThe bee awak’d, and stung the child.Loud and piteous are his cries;To Venus quick he runs, he flies;“Oh, Mother! I am wounded through--I die with pain--in sooth I do!Stung by some little angry thing,Some serpent on a tiny wing--A bee it was--for once, I know,I heard a rustic call it so.”Thus he spoke, and she the whileHeard him with a soothing smile;Then said, “My infant, if so muchThou feel the little wild bee’s touch,How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be,The hapless heart that’s stung by thee!”
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.]
- luckless a.
- Being without luck; unpropitious; unfortunate; unlucky; meeting with ill success or bad fortune; as, a luckless gamester; a luckless maid.
- sooth a.
- True; faithful; trustworthy. [OE. soth, AS. s, for san; akin to OS. s, OHG. sand, Icel. sannr, Sw. sann, Dan. sand, Skr. sat, sant, real, genuine, present, being; properly p. pr. from a root]
- angry a.
- Troublesome; vexatious; rigorous. [See Anger.]
- spoke n.
- The radius or ray of a wheel; one of the small bars which are inserted in the hub, or nave, and which serve to support the rim or felly. [OE. spoke, spake, AS, spaca; akin to D. speek, LG. speke, OHG. speihha, G. speiche. sq. root170. Cf. Spike a nail.]
- hapless a.
- Without hap or luck; luckless; unfortunate; unlucky; unhappy; as, hapless youth; hapless maid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cupid Stung 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 Stung, in Poems Every Child Should Know (1904), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16436, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/poems-every-child/cupid-stung.html, id L25289.
Form and metre
Cupid Stung is 20 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 93%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIBB bedA · headA · seeB · beeB · wildC · childC · criesD · fliesD · throughE · doE · thingF · wingF · knowG · soG · whileH · smileH · muchI · touchI · beB · theeB
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 once upon a bed | 7 | /˘····· |
| Of roses laid his weary head; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Luckless urchin, not to see | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Within the leaves a slumbering bee. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The bee awak’d--with anger wild | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The bee awak’d, and stung the child. | 8 | ········ |
| Loud and piteous are his cries; | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| To Venus quick he runs, he flies; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| “Oh, Mother! I am wounded through-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I die with pain--in sooth I do! | 8 | ········ |
| Stung by some little angry thing, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Some serpent on a tiny wing-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| A bee it was--for once, I know, | 8 | ········ |
| I heard a rustic call it so.” | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thus he spoke, and she the while | 7 | ······· |
| Heard him with a soothing smile; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Then said, “My infant, if so much | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thou feel the little wild bee’s touch, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| How must the heart, ah, Cupid! be, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The hapless heart that’s stung by thee!” | 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.