It is not a trip to the cemetery of an all-but-extinguished art and it is anything but a solemn memorial to the theater beloved by generations of audiences.

I pushed open the little wicket-gate and slowly took my way among the solemn memorials of the quiet dead, thinking of the many who had, during the past year, disappeared from the place, and had gone to "join the majority".

For Mrs. Kelly, the tree serves as a solemn memorial.

Assembling itself gradually out of the most delicate sounds, the piece grew into a solemn memorial for a great Italian poet, before retreating back into silence.

Mrs. Giuliani died as her son was preparing for a week of somber, solemn memorials to the victims of the attack on the World Trade Center marking the anniversary of Sept. 11.

Some people have even envisioned turning the whole site into a solemn memorial, but that's problematic, and not merely because the real estate is so valuable.

"If terror demands a civic reply," he wrote, "what better one than a solemn memorial to those lost and a space for the most fundamental exercise of democracy in space, the freedom to gather in a place that is our own."

In an unplanned but telling coincidence, state officials laid out two visions yesterday for the future of ground zero: A solemn memorial that deserves worldwide gifts in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

As ceremonies commemorating the attacks of Sept. 11 draw near, many people are planning to mark the occasion with speeches, solemn memorials, a multitude of voices.

The Islanders held a similar ceremony after yesterday's victory, without the solemn memorial.