Men begin to wake up.Four things, then, were to change the face of the world—gunpowder, printing, geographical discovery, and Greek. They would lead men first to wonder, then to reflect, and lastly to question—to question whether all the tales which the Church had been telling the world for a thousand years were true or false. Could Becket’s bones really restore a dead man to life? Could a priest turn bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ? Was the world really flat, and did the sun and moon go round it, as the Church said they did? Might there possibly be other worlds? You can understand, then, that the end of the fifteenth century left men rubbing their eyes, half awake and uneasy, but thinking—thinking hard.
The Dawn Wind.
At two o'clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,
You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun.
And the trees in the shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten,
And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.
Dozing and chewing the cud; or a bird in the ivy wakes,
Chirrups one note and is still, and the restless Wind strays on,
Fidgeting far down the road, till, softly, the darkness breaks.
