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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

CUPID FAR GONE by RICHARD LOVELACE

Poet Analysis

First Line: WHAT SO BEYOND ALL MADNESS IS THE ELF
Last Line: MUST LEASH'D T' HIMSELF WITH HIM A-HUNTING GO.
Subject(s): CUPID; EROS;
WHAT so beyond all madness is the elf,
Now he hath got out of himself!
His fatal enemy the bee,
Nor his deceiv'd artillery,
His shackles, nor the rose's bough
Ne'er half so nettled him as he is now.

See! at 's own mother he is offering,
His finger now fits any ring:
Old Cybele he would enjoy,
And now the girl, and now the boy.
He proffers Jove a back caress,
And all his love in the Antipodes.

Jealous of his chaste Psyche, raging he
Quarrels the student Mercury;
And with a proud submissive breath
Offers to change his darts with Death.
He strikes at the bright eye of day,
And Juno tumbles in her Milky Way.

The dear sweet secrets of the gods he tells,
And with loath'd hate lov'd heaven he swells;
Now like a fury he belies
Myriads of pure virginities;
And swears, with this false frenzy hurl'd,
There 's not a virtuous she in all the world.

Olympus he renounces, then descends,
And makes a friendship with the fiends;
Bids Charon be no more a slave,
He Argos rigg'd with stars shall have;
And triple Cerberus from below
Must leash'd t' himself with him a-hunting go.



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