To Cupid
Cupid, one arrow kindly spare,'Twill yield me transport beyond measure,I'll not be mean, by heaven I swear,With Mary I'll divide the treasure.
Thou wilt not?--Tyrant, now I seeThou lovest with grief my soul to harrow;To her thou'st given thy quiver--for meThou hast not left a single arrow!
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.]
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Cupid is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8192; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alexander Pushkin, To Cupid, in The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems (1849), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8192, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pushkin-bakchesarian/to-cupid.html, id L25565.
Form and metre
To Cupid is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 ABAB spareA · measureB · swearA · treasureB
- 2 ABAB seeA · harrowB · meA · arrowB
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 trochaic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Cupid, one arrow kindly spare, | 8 | /˘·/˘/˘· |
| 'Twill yield me transport beyond measure, | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| I'll not be mean, by heaven I swear, | 8 | ·····/·· |
| With Mary I'll divide the treasure. | 9 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘ |
| Thou wilt not?--Tyrant, now I see | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thou lovest with grief my soul to harrow; | 10 | ········/˘ |
| To her thou'st given thy quiver--for me | 9 | ···/·/˘·· |
| Thou hast not left a single arrow! | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
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.