Rostand picked up your old book, Cyrano, And only blew the dust off your name
When Paris as you strode it long ago
Leapt into light, rekindling your flame:
Swaggering Gascon, fierce foe, tender friend,
Poet and soldier, first man from the moon,
Withholding your long love until the end
Of court gazette, end of an afternoon -
Gallant and gifted, yet humiliated
By your own profile on the garden wall
(Coquelin, Hampden, Ferrer recreated
Nightly the nose you could not bear at all) -
Roxanne too late saw past your friendship's bars.
Windmills had swung, and flung you to the stars.
