I Nose Cyrano

I Nose Cyrano

"Falsehood! Prejudice! Compromise! Cowardice! 
What's that? Surrender? No! Never! Never! ... 
Ah, you too, Vanity? 
I knew you would overthrow me in the end. 
No! I fight on! I fight on! I fight on!" 
 Cyrano De Bergerac By Edmond Rostand (b. 1868 d. 1918)

Jose Ferrer as Cyrano

I read of the nose of which we now speak

By repute so awful and twisted a beak.

Yet our hero wielded a rapier so keen

the throats of all villains he slit it seemed.

His wit, it too was sharp as the blade,

To sue for a union of true hearts it did aid.

With verse read tender through the mouth of another,

the heart of Roxanne was his to discover.

Though at end, he lay slain, ‘fore departing he knew,

For him the maiden’s love was won and held true.

And though their lives were forced apart,

Our hero took Roxanne’s sweet heart at depart.

And the lesson for we that gallant Cyrano left

Is the public visage we present by proboscis led,

Is as nothing compared to what we display

Of true hearts and minds at work and play.

HL July, 2010