midnight
Belgium ! name unromantic and unpoetic , yet name that whenever uttered has in my ear a sound , in my heart an echo , such as no other assemblage of syllables , however sweet or classic , can produce . Belgium ! I repeat the word , now as I sit alone near midnight . It stirs my world of the past like a summons to resurrection ; the graves unclose , the dead are raised ; thoughts , feelings , memories that slept , are seen by me ascending from the clouds -- haloed most of them -- but while I gaze on their vapoury forms , and strive to ascertain definitely their outline , the sound which wakened them dies , and they sink , each and all , like a light wreath of mist , absorbed in the mould , recalled to urns , resealed in monuments . Farewell , luminous phantoms ! This is Belgium , reader .