ts the thing to its corresponding
images and thoughts and words.

The subject is really nothing. This mysterious music may be said to
have created the subject; just as the subject, when it is itself called
into existence, creates its images and words and mental atmosphere.
Except for the original out-welling of this hidden stream, pouring up
from unknown depths, there would be no thought, no image, no
words. A beautiful example of this is that poem entitled "Promenade
Sentimentale," which is one of the Paysages Tristes in the "Poemes
Saturniens."

It is a slight and shadowy thing, of no elaborate construction,
--simply a rendering of the impression produced upon the mind by
sunset and water; by willows and water-fowl and water-lilies. A
slight thing enough; but in some mysterious way it seems to blend
with all those vague feelings which are half memories and half
intimations of something beyond memory, which float round the
margins of all human minds.

We have seen these shadowy willows, that dying sunset; we have
heard the wail of those melancholy water-fowl; somewhere--far
from here--in some previous incarnation perhaps, or in the "dim
backward" of pre-natal dreaming. It all comes back to us as we give
ourselves up to the whispered cadences of this faint sweet music;
while those reiterated syllables about "the great water-lilies among
the rushes" fall upon us like a dirge, like a requiem, like the wistful
voice of what we have loved--once--long ago--touching us suddenly
with a pang that is well-nigh more than we can bear.

Le couchant dardait ses rayons supremes
Et le vent bercait les nenuphars blemes;
Les grands nenuphars entre les roseaux
Tristement luisaient sur les calmes eaux.
Moi, j'errais tout seul, promenant ma plaie
Au long de l'etang, parmi la saulaie
Ou la brume vague evoquait un grand
Fantome laiteux se desesperant
Et pleurant avec la voix des sarcelles
Qui se rappelaient en battant des ailes
Parmi la saulaie ou j'errais tout seul
Promenant ma plaie; et l'epais linceul
Des tenebres vint noyer les supremes
Rayons du couchant dans ses ondes blemes
Et des nenuphars parmi les roseaux
Des grands nenuphars sur les calmes eaux.

Verlaine is one of those great original poets the thought of whose
wistful evocations coming suddenly upon us when we are troubled
and vexed by the howl of life's wolves, becomes an incredible
man