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.
The poem's first lines introduce the speaker’s unequal relationship with Celia. He desires her so strongly that a single toast from her would be enough for him to pledge his heart to her forever. Similarly, should she merely leave a single kiss on the glass, it would be a fine enough wine for him to never have to drink again. These lines situate the poem as a conventional Renaissance love poem, concerning the relationship between a speaker and a woman who does not return his affections. It also establishes the poem’s disembodied version of desire. Both of the actions the speaker desires from Celia—her gaze and her kiss in the glass—preclude direct contact between himself and her.
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.
In the previous couplet, the speaker establishes that if Celia left him a single kiss in her glass, he would never thirst for wine again. However, he goes on to write that his soul would still thirst for a “drink divine.” Here, he’s alluding to the famous Biblical passage in which Jesus refers to himself as the “living water.” While ordinary drinks only satisfy the body, “drinking” God satisfies the soul. While ordinary drinks temporarily fend off death, God grants eternal life. By comparing Celia to wine, Jonson associates her with those ordinary drinks, implicitly suggesting that she cannot satisfy the desires of his soul, but only those of his body. Nevertheless, the next couplet leaves ambiguous whether he cares more about what his body or his soul wants. If we read “but” as “only if,” then Jonson is saying that he would only give up Celia’s affections if he could exchange them for divine immortality. However, if we read “but” as “even if,” he says that although only God can answer his soul’s desire for immortality, right now he’d still choose Celia.
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!
In the poem’s final two couplets, Celia returns a wreath the speaker gave to her in the hope that her presence would prevent it from dying. Again, the lines are ambiguous. The more obvious reading is that the speaker is delivering another over-the-top compliment. He thought the wreath would need to be with Celia to live forever; in fact, she only had to breathe on it once for it to begin to grow again. Moreover, she herself is so sweet that she is more of a flower than the flowers themselves, which begin to resemble her, rather than her them. However, we can also read the couplets as a veiled insult. Perhaps by sending away the flowers, Celia has merely doomed them to grow more and more withered. As they wither, they begin to smell not like live flowers, but rather like Celia, who the speaker now sees as decayed.
