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Tone is the emotional attitude of a writer or speaker.
In "Song: On Celia," the speaker conveys in the opening stanza the intensity of his love-sickness for Celia. His love for her is deep, but it can live on very little from her.
In the second stanza, the speaker conveys that his love for Celia is unrequited. When he sends her a wreath, she returns it, rejecting his overture. Nevertheless, he is undeterred, implying that he derives joy from the rejected wreath smelling of her scent.
For all that the subject of the poem is deep unrequited love, the tone of the poem is quiet. The speaker does not, for example, use exclamation points or make grand, melodramatic statements. Instead, he uses simple words and takes deep joy from simple, imagined interchanges. For instance, he writes,
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
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And I’ll not look for wine.
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
Ben Jonson's, "Song: To Celia," is about a speaker in the early stage of love, the infatuation stage. It is witty and epigrammatic, full of often-repeated, now-famous lines:
Drink to me only with thine eyes,...
and
...leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine.
The poem closes with a role reversal. The speaker sends his would-be lover flowers, but she sends them back, and he revels in smelling the flowers, detecting only her fragrance in the "rosy wreath," rather than the flowers themselves.
But the poem is not a carpe diem poem and is not facetious. The speaker is serious. He is infatuated.
Therefore, I suggest the tone of the poem--the speaker's attitude toward his subject--is one of serious infatuation.
What is the poem "Song: To Celia" about?
Jonson's "Song: To Celia" is a love poem. The speaker is declaring his love to Celia and asking her to give him any sign that she might return his love. He is wooing her through his verses.
In the first stanza, the speaker is begging his beloved to leave him a token of her esteem. All she has to do is show some love with her eyes ("Drink to me only with thine eyes"), and he will return the gesture. Or she could kiss the rim of a wine glass instead of him, and that will be enough. He says he is so full of love and longing for Celia that he would prefer her kiss, even through her lips on a wine goblet, to a sip of even Jove's, the king of the gods', nectar.
In the second stanza, the speaker reveals that so far his love is unrequited or unreturned by Celia. He says he sent her a wreath as a token of his love, and she sent it back, rejecting him. Nevertheless, he is still not displeased, because she breathed on the wreath, and now it grows and carries, he swears, the scent of her and not itself.
The speaker shows himself to be lovesick and yearning for any response at all from Celia. He uses hyperbole or exaggeration to express his love: she means more to him than the gods do, and he imagines her fragrance invigorating the wreath she returned, and he hopes it will not "wither."