Welcome to my poetry reading of 'The First Kiss of Love' by Lord Byron (1806). Do you have a favourite Byron poem?
#Byron #LordByron #poetry My poetry reading playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOkhbMqb35EqA0jxno4tE3goZ1MAvjf4Q
'The First Kiss of Love' by Lord Byron
Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,
Those tissues of falsehood which Folly has wovea;
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.
Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glowb,
Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flowc,
Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love.
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.
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 loved.
Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themese,
Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move:
Arcadia displays but a region of dreamsf;
What are visions like these, to the first kiss of love?
Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birthg,
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.
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.
(Source: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8861/8861-h/8861-h.htm#section48)