Cyrano de Bergerac
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.
