Bridges’ Eros and Psyche retells the Eros (= Cupid) and Psyche myth first recorded by Lucius Apuleius in his book The Golden Ass.

The poem is divided into twelve cantos – one for each of the twelve months of the year – which gives the poem a certain, almost “pastoral” feel. The number of stanzas in each canto equals the number of days in that month: so the first canto March has 31 stanzas, the second canto April has 30 stanzas, and so on. Each stanza is a septet (ie comprises exactly seven lines) which follow the same end-rhyming schema of a-b-a-b-c-c-b.