The speaker has skillfully trapped his mistress. When agreeing that they both indeed survived the killing of the flea, he capitalizes on the situation by explaining that her fears of sex are false since sex involves no greater loss of blood and no greater death. Then, strategically, the speaker ends the poem without giving his lover a chance to refute his clever rebuttal. .
The rhythm of the poem flows easily throughout, in an alternating iambic tetrameter/pentameter scheme, with all stanzas ending in pentameter couplets. The diction remains conversational as the speaker unabashedly renounces his lover's feelings without any concern for her thought or belief. While the idea of lessening the significance of sexual activity might entice a woman, logic concurs that such an argument should not be made in a brazen, condescending tone, for fear that, no matter how clever the argument, the woman will cease to hear it due to the obvious lack of respect. .
In Herrick's "To the Virgins to Make Much of Time," the speaker pleads the same case; however, this time to a group of women. His message, while just as bold, exhibits greater effectiveness. In this poem, the speaker's strategy seems centralized around time, the passing of time, and aging. His goal is to entice these women to reconsider their moral or religious beliefs, for fear of never being able to exercise the power of the beauty that they currently possess: .
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,.
Old time is still a-flying;.
And this same flower that smiles today.
Tomorrow will be dying. (1-4).
This opening stanza carries an undercurrent of the what many critics call the classic 17th Century "carpe diem" style, however instead of calling for his listener to seize the day, the speaker calls for sensual liberation. It seems that, perhaps in order to maintain the purity of the virgins, he equates sex to the gathering of rosebuds. The repetition of floral images in the opening lines bring to mind the process of the "de-flowering" (the rupture of the hymen) of a virgin, often described as a painful experience, but in this case, the speaker only speaks of the need to make haste in having it done.