Song: To Celia (Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes) by Ben Jonson
Quick answer: Song: To Celia by Ben Jonson, known as Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, analysed: its meaning, its borrowed Greek sources, and the craft of its conceits.
Ben Jonson, bricklayer's stepson, soldier, playwright and the most learned poet of his generation, published this song in his 1616 collection The Forest, and it has been sung continuously ever since; the melody most people know was attached in the eighteenth century. 'Drink to me only with thine eyes' is one of those first lines that has floated free of its poem, which is a good reason to put the whole poem back together.
There is a scholarly twist that makes the lyric more interesting, not less. Nearly every image in it is adapted from the prose love letters of Philostratus, a Greek writer of the third century. Jonson lifted the toasts, the kiss in the cup and the returned roses from prose and made them into one of the most naturally musical songs in English. The originality is entirely in the handling.
The poem
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, 'Song: To Celia' (1616)
What the poem says
The first stanza runs on the logic of toasting. Drink to me only with your eyes, says the speaker, and I will pledge with mine; or leave a kiss in the cup and I will not look for wine. The soul's thirst, he goes on, asks for a divine drink, but even if he might sip Jove's own nectar, he would not exchange it for hers. Glance for glass, kiss for wine, her look for the drink of the gods: each swap raises her value.
The second stanza turns to the rosy wreath he sent her, not to honour her, he claims, but in the hope that near her it could not wither. She breathed on it and sent it back, and now, he swears, it grows and smells 'not of itself, but thee'. The flattery is outrageous and perfectly poised: her breath outdoes the wreath's own nature.
How it works
The song alternates four-beat and three-beat lines with an interlaced rhyme scheme, and the syntax rides across the line breaks so smoothly that the poem seems to breathe rather than scan. Jonson was a classicist who believed in labour concealed; his own advice to poets was to write, revise, and strike out, and this lyric is the demonstration piece.
Both stanzas share one architecture: a proposition, an escalation, and a courteous impossibility. Each also turns on substitution, eyes for cups, breath for perfume, the beloved for nectar, which is the courtly game of proving the woman superior to every luxury by direct exchange rate. The tone never begs. The speaker offers, observes and compliments, and the confidence is a large part of the charm.
Why it lasts, and what you can steal
It lasts because it is genuinely singable and genuinely witty at once, a rare pairing. It also lasts as the great case study in transformation: Jonson took another writer's prose conceits and turned them into English song so completely that the borrowing took scholars centuries to trace.
That is the theft to learn from, done honestly. Take an image from a letter, a myth, an old prose text, and translate it into your own metre and idiom until it becomes yours; influence is raw material, plagiarism is unprocessed lifting, and the difference is the work. Try also the exchange-rate compliment: prove someone's worth by listing the luxuries you would trade away.
What poets can take from this
- Compliment by exchange rate: list what you would refuse in trade for the beloved's smallest gesture.
- Transform borrowed material completely; change its form, metre and idiom until it is yours.
- Alternate four-beat and three-beat lines when you want a poem to sing itself.
- Give each stanza the same internal architecture so a two-part poem feels like one gesture.
- Keep flattery confident rather than pleading; assurance is more persuasive than hunger.
Try it yourself
Take one image from an old letter, myth or prose passage, acknowledge your source in a note, and transform the image into a two-stanza song in alternating four- and three-beat lines.
Questions
What is the meaning of Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes?
The speaker asks his beloved for a look instead of a toast and a kiss in the cup instead of wine, declaring her glance worth more than the nectar of the gods. It is an elaborate courtly compliment built on substitution.
Did Ben Jonson invent the images in Song: To Celia?
No. He adapted them from the Greek prose letters of Philostratus, reworking scattered prose conceits into a single English lyric. The transformation, not the material, is his achievement.
Is Song: To Celia actually a song?
Yes, it was written as a song and has been set to music many times. The famous tune usually sung today was attached in the eighteenth century, long after Jonson's death.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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