Stout was its arm, each thew and bone
Seem'd puissant and alive—
But ah! its heart, its heart was stone
And so it could not thrive.
On that hard pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell;
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
In his goodly hall with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad in furious guise
Along the Appian Way.
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers;
No easier, nor no quicker passed
The impracticable hours.[182]
But the "darkest hour is just before the dawn," and "the fulness of the time was come." Already the first faint glimmers of the breaking of a grander and better day were perceptible to the senses of the noblest and finest of Roman intellects. Already Cicero had pictured a glorious millennium that would follow if perfect virtue should ever enter into the flesh and come to dwell among men.[183] Already Virgil, deriving inspiration from the Erythræan Sibylline prophecies, had sung of the advent of a heaven-born child, whose coming would restore the Golden Age, and establish enduring peace and happiness on the earth.[184] Already a debauched, degraded and degenerate world was crying in the anguish of its soul: "I know that my Redeemer liveth!" And, even before the Baptist began to preach in the wilderness, the ways had been made straight for the coming of the Nazarene.