A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear. - Edmond Rostand

CYRANO:
Thy name is in my heart as in a sheep-bell,
And as I ever tremble, thinking of thee,
Ever the bell shakes, ever thy name ringeth!
All things of thine I mind, for I love all things;
I know that last year on the twelfth of May-month,
To walk abroad, one day you changed your hair-plaits!
I am so used to take your hair for daylight
That, — like as when the eye stares on the sun's disk,
One sees long after a red blot on all things — So, when I quit thy beams, my dazzled vision
Sees upon all things a blonde stain imprinted.

ROXANE (agitated):
Why, this is love indeed!. . .

CYRANO:
Ay, true, the feeling
Which fills me, terrible and jealous, truly
Love, — which is ever sad amid its transports!
Love, — and yet, strangely, not a selfish passion!
I for your joy would gladly lay mine own down, — E'en though you never were to know it, — never! — If but at times I might — far off and lonely, — Hear some gay echo of the joy I bought you!
Each glance of thine awakes in me a virtue, — A novel, unknown valor. Dost begin, sweet,
To understand? So late, dost understand me?
Feel'st thou my soul, here, through the darkness mounting?
Too fair the night! Too fair, too fair the moment!
That I should speak thus, and that you should hearken!
Too fair! In moments when my hopes rose proudest,
I never hoped such guerdon. Naught is left me
But to die now! Have words of mine the power
To make you tremble, — throned there in the branches?
Ay, like a leaf among the leaves, you tremble!
You tremble! For I feel, — an if you will it,
Or will it not, — your hand's beloved trembling
Thrill through the branches, down your sprays of jasmine!

(He kisses passionately one of the hanging tendrils.)

ROXANE:
Ay! I am trembling, weeping! — I am thine!
Thou hast conquered all of me! — Cyrano de Bergerac III. 7

A kiss! When all is said, what is a kiss? An oath of allegiance taken in closer proximity, a promise more precise, a seal on a confession, a rose-red dot upon the letter i in loving; a secret which elects the mouth for ear; an instant of eternity murmuring like a bee; balmy communion with a flavor of flowers; a fashion of inhaling each other's hearts, and of tasting, on the brink of the lips, each other's soul!

I sing, not to hear the echo repeat, a shade fainter, my song! I think of light and not of glory! Singing is my fashion of waging war and bearing witness. And if my song is the proudest of songs, it is that I sing clearly to make the day rise clear!