How delicious is the winning of a kiss at love's beginning.

The couplet celebrates the particular sweetness of early courtship: a first kiss is framed not as something freely given but as a “winning,” a prize earned through mutual attraction, hesitation, and playful pursuit. Campbell’s diction (“delicious,” “love’s beginning”) emphasizes sensual immediacy while keeping the tone light and lyrical, typical of romantic-era love poetry that idealizes youthful feeling and the thrill of new attachment. The lines suggest that desire is intensified by novelty and anticipation—what is most pleasurable is not only the kiss itself but the moment when affection first becomes tangible and reciprocated.