The Full Text of “Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")”
1Drink to me only with thine eyes,
2 And I will pledge with mine;
3Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
4 And I’ll not look for wine.
5The thirst that from the soul doth rise
6 Doth ask a drink divine;
7But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
8 I would not change for thine.
9I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
10 Not so much honouring thee
11As giving it a hope, that there
12 It could not withered be.
13But thou thereon didst only breathe,
14 And sent’st it back to me;
15Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
16 Not of itself, but thee.
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Introduction
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"Song: To Celia" (better known as "Drink to me only with thine eyes") is Ben Jonson's famous love song, first published in his 1616 collection The Forest. The poem's speaker tells his beloved that her love is sweeter, more intoxicating, and more life-giving than even the nectar of the gods. Through its rich images of wine and roses, the poem suggests that love is the most powerful and delicious thing in all of heaven and earth.
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Summary
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If you'd only "toast" me with a glance, I'd swear loyalty to you with my own eyes in return. And if you dropped a kiss into my empty cup, I'd never bother to fill it with wine. A thirst (like love) that comes from the soul can only be quenched with a truly sacred drink. But even if the king of the gods himself offered me some of his sweet wine, I'd still prefer your kiss.
Not long ago, I sent you a crown of roses, not so much as a gift for you, but as a gift for the roses: I imagined that, in your blissful company, they might never wilt and fade. All you did was breathe gently on this flower-crown and send it back to me. Since then, I swear, the crown is still fresh and growing, and doesn't smell of roses, but of you.
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Themes
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The Power of Love
The besotted speaker of “Song: To Celia” is drunk on love. A simple glance from his beloved Celia is more delicious than even the wine of the gods, and the scent of her breath makes him feel as if he might be able to cheat death itself. To this speaker, the intoxication of love is a pleasure beyond anything in heaven or earth, and it has the power to transform an ordinary mortal into a goddess.
Begging his beloved Celia to glance his way—or, if he’s really lucky, give him a kiss—the speaker makes it clear that he prefers Celia’s love to any other delight. If she’d “leave a kiss” in his empty cup, for instance, he’d never need to drink wine again: love alone could get him drunk. Even “nectar,” the legendary drink of the classical gods themselves, is nothing next to his Celia’s sweetness. There’s absolutely no pleasure the speaker would choose over Celia; her love is the absolute best thing he can possibly imagine, in this world or in the heavens themselves.
Not only does Celia outclass every other pleasure in the world for this speaker, but she also has almost supernatural abilities to stave off death. These powers reflect the speaker’s undying love for her. When the speaker sends Celia a wreath of roses, he’s hoping that her mere presence will preserve them forever—and he’s not disappointed. She only has to breathe on the roses, and not only do they not wilt, they “grow.” They even smell of Celia herself—a smell that this speaker clearly prizes above any flowery perfume. This sensual image of immortality suggests that the speaker feels his love for Celia is as deathless as those symbolic roses. But it also suggests that love makes him see Celia as a kind of goddess. Love hasn’t just made him drunk, it’s made his beloved seem magical.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")”
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Lines 1-4
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.Ben Jonson's "Song: To Celia" starts with a famous metaphor: love as wine. To this speaker, love isn't just deliciously intoxicating: it's the most glorious beverage imaginable. No literal wine can live up to a mere glance from his beloved Celia.
The poem's first two lines present an image of lovers' eyes meeting as a kind of toast: a ceremonial beginning to something wonderful. The speaker begs his Celia to "drink to him" with her eyes and vows that he'll "pledge" her with an identical glance. This image suggests not just that the pair are about to enjoy the wine of love together, but that they're making a kind of promise. A "pledge," after all, can be both a toast and a vow. The speaker isn't just saying that he longs for Celia to return his loving gaze. He's saying that, once she does, he'll swear himself to her forever.
He'll even go one further. If Celia will only "leave a kiss but in the cup," it'll satisfy him so completely that he'll have no need for literal wine anymore. This suggests that Celia's kiss has all the powers wine has, and more: it can quench the speaker's metaphorical thirst, it can satisfy his tastes, it can get him drunk. But the wine of Celia's kiss is better than any real wine could be.
Even in these first four lines, the reader gets the sense that this speaker is pretty drunk on his love for Celia already. But he's not sloppy or exuberant in his drunkenness: he's intensely, quietly committed. Listen to his assonance in these lines:
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.That insistently repeated long /i/ sound—which will appear all through this first stanza—makes the speaker sound completely focused, suggesting that his life centers on his singleminded desire for Celia's love.
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Lines 5-8
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
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Lines 9-12
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope, that there
It could not withered be. -
Lines 13-16
But thou thereon didst only breathe,
And sent’st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself, but thee.
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Symbols
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The Rosy Wreath
The "rosy wreath" the speaker sends Celia in the second stanza is a symbol of undying passion.
Flowers are a common symbol of love, and none more so than roses. Their delicious scent and soft petals evoke love's delights (and lovers' bodies), and their thorns and speedy wilting reflect love's pains, disappointments, and unreliability.
But when this speaker sends Celia a "rosy wreath," it seems all the agonies of love go out the window. Celia's mere breath makes these roses immortal: they can't be "withered" so long as they're near her.
What's more, in this speaker's mind, Celia and the roses seem pretty intimately related. When Celia breathes on the wreath and sends it back to him, the speaker swears that the wreath smells, not of roses, but of Celia herself: an intensely sexual image that suggests his passion for her will never "wither," either.
And since these roses take the form of a "wreath," there's a sense that the speaker wants to crown Celia the queen of love—the way a poet laureate is crowned with laurels.
- See where this symbol appears in the poem.
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Parallelism
The parallelism (and anaphora) in the first lines of "Song: To Celia" introduces the speaker's earnest voice—and the poem's wine metaphors.
Take a look at the repeated grammatical structure in the first quatrain:
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.These lines use a sing-song structure that harmonizes with the sing-song rhyme scheme. First, the speaker begs a favor from his beloved Celia. Then, he assures her of just how deeply he'll appreciate any sign of love from her.
Those assurances start with the same words: "And I will," "And I'll." That anaphora makes the speaker sound even more serious and intense, as if he's saying, "No, listen, really, I want nothing more than the tiniest loving gesture from you."
The repetitions here also introduce the poem's wine metaphor. In this impassioned speaker's eyes, a mere glance from Celia—let alone a kiss!—is more intoxicating than even the headiest drink. Parallelism subtly underscores that comparison, repeatedly drawing the reader's attention to the speaker's love-drunk state.
Parallelism thus sets up the tone and mood of the rest of the poem, making it clear that this speaker is deeply in love, and deeply serious about it.
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Metaphor
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Assonance
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Alliteration
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Allusion
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Imagery
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Pun
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Drink to me
- Thine, Thee, Thou
- Pledge
- Leave a kiss but in the cup
- Doth
- Jove
- Nectar
- Sup
- I would not change for thine
- Thou thereon didst only breathe
- Sent'st
Drink to me-
Toast me, raise a glass to me.
- See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")”
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Form
"Song: To Celia" is, as its title suggests, a song: a short, sweet, musical poem. It's built from two eight-line stanzas (or octaves), but those stanzas also break down neatly into two pairs of four-line stanzas (or quatrains). Each quatrain is more specifically a ballad stanza, a form that's often set to music. (For more on what makes this a ballad stanza, check out the Meter and Rhyme Scheme sections of this guide.)
This neat, elegant form makes the speaker sound not just passionate, but calm and sure-footed. He isn't wildly crying "I'm in love and I want the world to know it!" like a young Romeo. He's making a measured, focused, quietly intense "pledge" of undying love.
In the first stanza, the speaker swears that he wants nothing more than his Celia's love—a common enough sentiment in love poetry, though beautifully expressed. But something more unusual happens in the second stanza: the speaker tells Celia a little story about how the roses she breathed on smell, not of roses, but of her own sweetness now. This storytelling makes the poem feel more intimate as it goes on, until, by the end, it's as if the speaker is whispering in Celia's ear.
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Meter
"Song: To Celia" uses an old, musical meter: ballad meter, sometimes also known as common measure. That means its lines switch between iambic tetrameter—that is, lines of four iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm—and iambic trimeter, lines of three iambs.
Here's how that sounds in lines 5-6:
The thirst | that from | the soul | doth rise
Doth ask | a drink | divine;This is one of the oldest and most common meters in English-language poetry, and its gentle, swaying rhythm makes it especially suitable for love poems like this one. The meter here seems to invite a besotted lover to burst into song. (And in fact, this famous song has been set to music many, many times—see the Resources section for some examples.)
But the speaker also plays with that meter. Take a look at the rhythm of the very first line:
Drink to | me on- | ly with | thine eyes,
Spot the difference? The first foot there is a trochee, the opposite of an iamb: it goes DUM-da instead of da-DUM. That strong first stress makes the speaker sound urgent, as if he's swept up in his passion.
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Rhyme Scheme
This poem's musical rhyme scheme runs like this:
ABCBABCB
An ABCB rhyme scheme is pretty common and familiar, turning up everywhere from ballads to nursery rhymes. But there's something a little different going on here.
The ABCB scheme usually breaks down into quatrains, with a new set of rhymes in every four-line stanza. But here, the same A, B, and C rhymes repeat across each full eight-line octave.
This drawn-out, alternating pattern, always returning to that same B rhyme, feels melodious and hypnotic. That musicality suits this poem's form—it's a song, after all. But it also suggests just how enraptured the speaker is by his Celia: just as the rhymes orbit around that B, his thoughts orbit around her.
And to make things even more intense, the poem is also riddled with assonant slant rhyme—for instance, the long /i/ sound shared between "eyes" and "mine" or "rise" and "divine" in the first stanza, or the long /ee/ sounds of "wreath"/"thee" and "breathe"/"me" in the second. These echoes fill the poem with rich harmony.
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Speaker
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The speaker of this poem is, first and foremost, a lover. He's so besotted with his Celia that he sees her as an almost angelic figure: a being whose kisses are more intoxicating than wine, who smells sweeter than roses, and who can keep flowers alive with her mere breath.
In fact, this speaker is so deeply in love that he can't imagine any pleasure above the pleasure his beloved gives him. Even the wine of the gods couldn't tempt the speaker away from a single kiss from Celia. In other words, he's got it bad—and that doesn't bother him one bit. He embraces his fate with fervor, vowing to "pledge" himself to his beloved like a priest in a goddess's temple.
While we've used masculine pronouns in this guide to reflect the fact that the speaker has been historically read as being male like the poet, Ben Johnson, do note that there's no actual indication in the text itself of the speaker's gender!
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“Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Setting
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There's no clear setting in this poem: it's just an intimate message of love. But its archaic vocabulary makes it clear that this love song belongs to Ben Jonson's own Jacobean England.
For instance, the allusion to "Jove" evokes not just ancient Greece, but a Renaissance habit of referring to (and swearing by) the classical gods. (See Malvolio in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night crying "Jove and my stars be praised!" for just one famous example.)
While the language here places this poem in a particular era, its sentiments are timeless. Set to music, this poem has become an old standard, alive to this day.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")”
Literary Context
The rowdy, witty, irascible Ben Jonson (1572-1637) was one of the biggest and most influential voices of 17th-century literary London. A contemporary, friend, and sometime rival of Shakespeare's, he was famous for his brilliant, cynical plays and his tender (and often heartbreaking) verse.
"Song: To Celia" is perhaps Jonson's most enduring work, though it's often not even attributed to him. Set to music, it became so famous that it's almost a folk song, an old standard that has stayed popular since it was first published in Jonson's 1616 collection The Forest. It's such a force in pop culture that everyone from Johnny Cash to Bing Crosby to Hyacinth Bucket has performed it.
Jonson was such a popular and influential figure that a whole younger generation of writers, including big names like Robert Herrick and Richard Lovelace, called themselves the "Tribe of Ben." These writers would gather in The Devil and St. Dunstan, a London tavern, to party and argue with Jonson, and considered themselves inheritors of both his lyrical language and his iconoclastic wit.
Jonson was often in trouble with the law during his lifetime—for his brawling, and for his stubborn Catholicism in a Protestant era. He nonetheless rose to favor and acclaim under the reigns of King James and King Charles I. While he was never officially given the title, many consider him England's first Poet Laureate.
Historical Context
Ben Jonson was one of the leading lights of the English Renaissance, and lived right at the heart of the action in 16th- and 17th-century London, a golden age for English poetry and theater. Poets and playwrights like Jonson held an unusual position in a changing English society: while many of them came from lower-class origins, their popular and influential art meant they walked among royalty. Jonson, for instance, worked as a bricklayer and soldier as a young man, but by the end of his life had served two monarchs, James I and Charles I. In this art-loving age, theater and poetry allowed for an unprecedented new kind of social mobility.
Jonson worked for a while as an actor and an undistinguished writer, but began his real rise to prominence when the Lord Chamberlain's Men—Shakespeare's theater company—performed his play Every Man in His Humour. Jonson quickly became famous for his cutting, cynical plays, many of which skewered human greed and folly.
He was also famous for his combative friendship with Shakespeare. Not long before he died, he wrote in one breath that Shakespeare was a windbag—and a man he loved "on this side idolatry." It's in part thanks to Jonson that much of Shakespeare's work survived: after Shakespeare's death, Jonson helped to publish the First Folio, the world-changing book that collected many of Shakespeare's previously unprinted plays. (Cantankerous to the end, Jonson also took the opportunity to criticize the portrait of Shakespeare that appeared in that volume, urging readers to "look / Not on his picture, but his book.")
Ever an iconoclast, Jonson refused to do what others did even in death: a longstanding legend that he was buried standing up was confirmed in an excavation of his grave in Westminster Abbey.
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More “Song: To Celia ("Drink to me only with thine eyes")” Resources
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External Resources
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A Short Biography — Learn more about Ben Jonson's life and work at the Poetry Foundation.
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Jonson's Legacy — Learn more about Jonson's enduring literary reputation.
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The Poem Set to Music — Listen to Johnny Cash performing this song (and reminiscing about how important it was to him).
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The Poem in Pop Culture — Watch a performance of the song from the 2020 movie version of Jane Austen's Emma.
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Jonson's Works — Find links to more information about Jonson's career and writing at the British Library.
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Another Performance — Listen to Paul Robeson singing another musical version of the song.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Ben Jonson
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