I will enjoy thee now, my Celia, come
-- Speaker (Line 1)

Importance: This first line, so simple and declarative, introduces the poem's key story. The speaker is in love with a woman named Celia, and he wants to have sex with her. More properly, he declares that he is going to enjoy the act of sex with her. In these simple words, the poem introduces many of its core themes: the pleasure of sex, the relationship between the speaker and Celia, and the question of consent.

Nor, as we once thought, / The seed of gods, but a weak model wrought / By greedy men, that seek to enclose the common, / And within private arms empale free woman.
-- Speaker (Lines 16 – 20)

Importance: In these lines, the speaker introduces his key argument against shame and sexual constraint. He says that he and Celia were wrong to believe that these ideas came from God. Instead, the idea that sex is shameful only...