Stolen sweets are always sweeter,
Stolen kisses much completer,
Stolen looks are nice in chapels,
Stolen, stolen, be your apples.

In a playful, sing-song stanza, Hunt celebrates the heightened thrill that comes from secrecy and transgression. “Stolen” here is less about serious theft than about pleasures taken outside permission—sweets filched, kisses snatched, glances exchanged where they ought not be (even “in chapels,” where decorum is expected). The repetition turns the word into a refrain of mischievous delight, suggesting that desire is intensified by risk, concealment, and the sense of getting away with something. At the same time, the light tone keeps the moral stakes comic rather than criminal, aligning the poem with Hunt’s fondness for urbane wit and romantic teasing.