Ben Jonson’s speaker is consumed by a passionate urgency. He begs Celia to embrace physical pleasure (“the sports of love”) right now, because time is running out. The mood is intimate and conspiratorial: he treats the passing hours like a vanishing gift, pointing out that while the sun sets and rises again, their own “light” once lost is a perpetual night with no second chances. There’s a playful defiance too—he dismisses reputation as a toy and suggests they can easily trick the household spies who might watch them. The final twist is clever: stealing love’s fruit isn’t sinful, but being seen and caught is. So the real crime would be to reveal their secret. Throughout, the speaker’s tone is coaxing, light, and filled with desire, yet it’s underpinned by a quiet dread that time will sever them forever.
Song To Celia - I — Summary
Come, my Celia, let us prove While we may the sports of love; Time will not be ours forever, He at length our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain; Suns that set may rise again, But if once we lose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys? Fame and rumour are but toys. Cannot we delude the eyes Of a few poor household spies? Or his easier ears beguile, So removed by our wile?
'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal; But the sweet theft to reveal, To be taken, to be seen, These have crimes accounted been.