?
Can honor's voice provoke the silent dust
Or flattery sooth the dull cold ear of death?"

If you wish to be transported to the mystic cloud-land of fancy, read
Hawthorne.

"Sleeping or waking, we hear not the airy footsteps of the strange
things that almost happen. He knew not that a phantom of wealth had
thrown a golden hue upon its waters. Nor that one of death had
threatened to crimson them with his blood, all in the brief hour since
he lay down to sleep."

To a dreamy and poetic mind what can be more exquisite than these few
lines: "The next morning Hieronymus put the scroll into his bosom, and
went his way in search of the Fountain of Oblivion. A few days brought
him to the skirts of the Black forest. He entered, not without a feeling
of dread, that land of shadows, and passed onward under melancholy pines
and cedars, whose branches grew abroad and mingled together, and, as
they swayed up and down, filled the air with solemn twilight and a sound
of sorrow. As he advanced into the forest the waving moss hung, like
curtains, from the branches overhead, and more shut out the light of
heaven; and he knew the Fountain of Oblivion was not far off. Even then
the sound of falling waters was mingling with the roar of the pines
above him; and ere long he came to a river, moving in solemn majesty
through the forest, and falling with a dull, leaden sound into a
motionless stagnant lake, above which the branches of the forest met and
mingled, forming perpetual night. This was the Fountain of Oblivion.
Upon its brink the Student paused, and gazed into the dark waters with a
steadfast look. They were limpid waters dark with shadows only. And as
he gazed, he beheld, far down in their silent depths, dim and
ill-defined outlines, wavering to and fro, like the folds of a white
garment in the twilight. Then more distinct and permanent shapes
arose,--shapes familiar to his mind, yet forgotten and remembered
again, as the fragments of a dream; till at length, far, far below him
he beheld the great City of the Past, with silent marble streets, and
moss-grown walls, and spires uprising with a wave-like, flickering
motion. And, amid the crowd that thronged those streets he beheld faces
once familiar and dear to him; and heard sorrowful, sweet voices
singing, O' forget us not! forget us not!' and then the distant,
mournful sound of funeral bells, that were tolling below, in the City of
the Past."

* * *