Leigh Hunt

Cupid Drowned

Cupid Drowned.
"Cupid Drowned" (1784-1859), "Cupid Stung" (1779-1852), and "Cupid and My Campasbe" (1558-1606) are three dainty poems recommended by Mrs. Margaret Mooney, of the Albany Teachers' College in her "Foundation Studies in Literature." Children are always delighted with them.
T'other day as I was twining
Roses, for a crown to dine in,
What, of all things, 'mid the heap,
Should I light on, fast asleep,

Cupid as pest, not god

Hunt calls Cupid a 'desperate elf' and 'tiny traitor'—not the dignified Roman deity. This language suggests love as something mischievous and uncontrollable rather than noble or transcendent.

But the little desperate elf,
The tiny traitor, Love, himself!

Cupid as pest, not god

Hunt calls Cupid a 'desperate elf' and 'tiny traitor'—not the dignified Roman deity. This language suggests love as something mischievous and uncontrollable rather than noble or transcendent.

By the wings I picked him up
Like a bee, and in a cup

Drowning as metaphor

Plunging Cupid into wine isn't literal—it's a playful way to say the speaker tried to suppress desire through intoxication. The poem treats love like a pest to be eliminated.

Of my wine I plunged and sank him,
Then what d'ye think I did?—I drank him.

Drowning as metaphor

Plunging Cupid into wine isn't literal—it's a playful way to say the speaker tried to suppress desire through intoxication. The poem treats love like a pest to be eliminated.

Love survives and multiplies

The speaker fails. Cupid doesn't die but returns 'with tenfold glee'—suggesting desire intensifies when repressed rather than disappearing. This is the poem's actual argument.

Faith, I thought him dead. Not he!
There he lives with tenfold glee;

Love survives and multiplies

The speaker fails. Cupid doesn't die but returns 'with tenfold glee'—suggesting desire intensifies when repressed rather than disappearing. This is the poem's actual argument.

Physical sensation of emotion

The final image of Cupid 'tickling my heart-strings' moves from action to bodily feeling. Hunt ends not with triumph but with the speaker now inhabited by the love he tried to destroy.

And now this moment with his wings
I feel him tickling my heart-strings.

Physical sensation of emotion

The final image of Cupid 'tickling my heart-strings' moves from action to bodily feeling. Hunt ends not with triumph but with the speaker now inhabited by the love he tried to destroy.

Leigh Hunt.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The joke: repression backfires

This poem isn't sentimental about love—it's comic. The speaker actively tries to kill Cupid by drowning him in wine, as if love were a drowning pest. But the punchline undermines the attempt: Cupid survives and thrives, returning with 'tenfold glee.' Hunt's real subject is the futility of trying to suppress desire through willpower or intoxication.

The structure mirrors a joke setup: the speaker confidently describes the "solution" (lines 7-10), then delivers the reversal (lines 11-12). By drinking the wine with Cupid in it, the speaker literally internalizes what he tried to destroy. The final image—Cupid's wings tickling the heart-strings from inside—shows love has won not through romance but through the speaker's own failed resistance.

Hunt's light touch with classical myth

Hunt (1784-1859) was known for witty, accessible treatments of classical material—he made mythology playful rather than grandiose. Here, Cupid is miniaturized ('little,' 'tiny') and treated as a household pest, not a cosmic force. This deflation is deliberate: Hunt strips away the reverence usually given to love poetry.

The casual tone—'T'other day,' 'What d'ye think I did?'—uses colloquial speech to undercut any pretense of high art. Hunt addresses the reader directly, making the poem feel like gossip between friends rather than a formal meditation. This accessibility made Hunt popular with general readers but also made him suspect to critics who preferred their poetry more dignified. The poem proves his point: you can say something true about desire without solemnity.