The realms of Rome had disappeared in clouds of barbaric war,
while the realms of Byzantium were still golden and gorgeous in the sun.
The men of the East did not realise that their splendour was stiffening
and growing sterile, and even the early successes of Islam may not
have revealed to them that their rule was not only stiff but brittle.
It was something else that was destined to reveal it.
The Crusades meant many things; but in this matter they meant one thing,
which was like a word carried to them on the great west wind.
And the word was like that in an old Irish song: "The west is awake."
They heard in the distance the cries of unknown crowds and felt
the earth shaking with the march of mobs; and behind them came
the trampling of horses and the noise of harness and of horns of war;
new kings calling out commands and hosts of young men full of hope
crying out in the old Roman tongue "Id Deus vult," Rome was risen
from the dead.
Almost any traveller could select out of the countless things
that he has looked at the few things that he has seen.
I mean the things that come to him with a curious clearness;
so that he actually sees them to be what he knows them to be.
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