to give
to one of his most characteristic experiments in verse; the one that
contains that amazing poem addressed to the rose, with its
melancholy and sinister refrain which troubles the memory like a
swift wicked look from a beautiful countenance that ought to be
pure and cold in death.

And how lovely and significant are those words "The Pilgrim of
Silence," which is the name he seems to select for his own
wandering and insatiable soul.

The Pilgrim of Silence! Pilgrim moving, aloof from the clamours of
men, from garden to garden of melancholy and sweet mystery;
pilgrim passing night by night along moon-lit parterres of
impossible roses; pilgrim seeking "wild sea-banks" where
strange-leaved glaucous plants whisper their secrets to the sharp salt
wind; pilgrim of silence, for whom the gentlest murmur of the troubled
senses of feverish humanity has its absorbing interest, every quiver
of those burning eyelids its secret intimation, every sigh of that
tremulous breast its burden of delicate confession; pilgrim of silence
moving aloof from the howls of the mob and the raucous voices of
the preachers, moving from garden to garden, from sea-shore to
sea-shore; cannot even you--oh pilgrim of the long, long quest--give us
the word, the clue, the signal, that shall answer the riddle of our days,
and make the twilight of our destiny roll back? Pilgrim of silence,
have you only silence to offer us at the last, after all your litanies to
all the gods living and dead? Is silence your last word too?

Thus we can imagine Simone, the tender companion of our
wanderer, questioning him as they walk together over the dead
memories of all the generations.

Ah yes! Simone may question her pilgrim--her pilgrim of silence
--even as, in his own "Nuit au Luxembourg," the youth to whom our
Lord discoursed so strangely, questioned the Master as to the
ultimate mystery and received so ambiguous a response.

And Simone likewise shall receive her answer, as we all--whether
we be descendants of the Puritans, crossing Boston Common, or
aliens of the sweat-shops of New York, crossing Washington Square,
or unemployed in Hyde Park, or nursery-maids in the Jardin des
Plantes--shall receive ours, as we walk over the dead leaves of the
centuries.

Simone, aimes-tu le bruit des pas sur les feuilles mortes?

Quand le pied les ecrase, elles pleurent comme des ames,
Elle font un bruit d'ailes ou de robes de femme.

Simone, aime