Lord Byron
1.
Away with your fictions of flimsy romance, Those tissues of falsehood which
Folly has wove; Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance, Or the
rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.
2.
Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow, Whose pastoral passions are made
for the grove; From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow, Could
you ever have tasted the first kiss of love.
3.
If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse, Or the Nine be dispos'd from
your service to rove, Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the Muse, And try
the effect, of the first kiss of love.
4.
I hate you, ye cold compositions of art, Though prudes may condemn me, and
bigots reprove; I court the effusions that spring from the heart, Which
throbs, with delight, to the first kiss of love.
5.
Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes, Perhaps may amuse,
yet they never can move: Arcadia displays but a region of dreams; What are
visions like these, to the first kiss of love?
6.
Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth, From Adam, till now, has with
wretchedness strove; Some portion of Paradise still is on earth, And Eden
revives, in the first kiss of love.
7.
When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past For years fleet away
with the wings of the dove The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love.
December 23, 1806.
