“I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart, As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards, the soldier’s art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights.”

“XII.If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalkAbove its mates, the head was chopped, the bentsWere jealous else. What made those holes and rentsIn the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulkAll hope of greenness? Tis a brute must walkPashing their life out, with a brute's intents.XIII.As for the grass, it grew as scant as hairIn leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mudWhich underneath looked kneaded up with blood.One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,Stood stupified, however he came there:Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!XIV.Alive? he might be dead for aught I knew,With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain.And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;I never saw a brute I hated so;He must be wicked to deserve such pain.XV.I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart,As a man calls for wine before he fights,I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.Think first, fight afterwards, the soldier's art:One taste of the old time sets all to rights.XVI.Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening faceBeneath its garniture of curly gold,Dear fellow, till I almost felt him foldAn arm to mine to fix me to the place,The way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.XVII.Giles then, the soul of honour - there he standsFrank as ten years ago when knighted first,What honest man should dare (he said) he durst.Good - but the scene shifts - faugh! what hangman handsPin to his breast a parchment? His own bandsRead it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!XVIII.Better this present than a past like that:Back therefore to my darkening path again!No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.Will the night send a howlet or a bat?I asked: when something on the dismal flatCame to arrest my thoughts and change their train.XIX.A sudden little river crossed my pathAs unexpected as a serpent comes.No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;This, as it frothed by, might have been a bathFor the fiend's glowing hoof - to see the wrathOf its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.XX.So petty yet so spiteful! All along,Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fitOf mute despair, a suicidal throng:The river which had done them all the wrong,Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.XXI.Which, while I forded - good saints, how I fearedTo set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,Each step, of feel the spear I thrust to seekFor hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!- It may have been a water-rat I speared,But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.XXII.Glad was I when I reached the other bank.Now for a better country. Vain presage!Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,Whose savage trample thus could pad the danksoil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tankOr wild cats in a red-hot iron cage -XXIII.The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque,What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?No footprint leading to that horrid mews,None out of it. Mad brewage set to workTheir brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the TurkPits for his pastime, Christians against Jews. ”

“For the first time I noticed - as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next - that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized. And I could accept this. It was all right.”

“Taryn Mitchell," he said, looking me in the eyes. "I love you. With all my heart."I felt all the blood rush from my body and surge right into my chest. All this time I waited for a man to say those words to me and mean it, and now I was hearing them from the one person I had hoped would say them. I gazed into his eyes and said what was in my heart. It was as easy and natural as breathing. "I love you too - more than anything in this world.”

“Cyrano: I can see him there---he grins---He is looking at my nose---that skeleton---What's that you say? Hopeless?---Why, very well!---But a man does not fight merely to win!No---no---better to know one fights in vain!...You there---Who are you? A hundred against one---I know them now, my ancient enemies---Falsehood!...There! There! Prejudice---Compromise---Cowardice---What's that? No! 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!Yes, all my laurels you have riven awayAnd all my roses; yet in spite of you,There is one crown I bear away with me,And to-night, when I enter before God,My salute shall sweep all the stars awayFrom the blue threshold! One thing without stain,Unspotted from the world, in spite of doomMine own!---And that is...Roxane: ---That is...Cyrano: My white plume....”

“When I can no more stir my soul to move, and life is but the ashes of a fire; when I can but remember that my heart once used to live and love, long and aspire- O, be thou then the first, the one thou art; be thou the calling, before all answering love, and in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.”