The first interlude in _Ferishtah's Fancies_. These interludes are love lyrics which follow the separate Fables and Fancies of the Persian Dervish Ferishtah, and state in terms of the affections the truth embodied in didactic or philosophical fashion in the fables. In the first fable, "The Eagle," the Dervish observes an eagle feeding some deserted ravens. His first inference is that men will be cared for as the ravens, without effort of their own; later he sees that men should be as eagles and provide for the weak. The Dervish at once seeks the largest sphere of human usefulness with the words "And since men congregate In towns, not woods--to Ispahan forthwith!" The lyric protests against the temptation to self-centered seclusion on the part of those who are entirely satisfied in each other's love. PROLOGUE TO ASOLANDO The volume of poems entitled _Asolando_ was, by a strange chance, published on the day of Browning's death. Most of these poems were written in 1888-1889. The book was dedicated to Mrs. Arthur Bronson. The "Prologue" should be compared with Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality." 13. _Chrysopras._ The ruby and the emerald of this passage stand for rich red and green. The chrysopras is also green (an apple green variety of Chalcedony), but the first part of the word is from the Greek [Greek: chrysos], "gold," and that may be the color intended here. SUMMUM BONUM The title means, The Chief Good. The poem came out in _Asolando_ in 1889. EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO In the _Pall Mall Gazette_, Feb. 1, 1890 the following incident is given concerning the third stanza of this poem: "One evening just before his death illness, the poet was reading this from a proof to his daughter-in-law and sister. He said: 'It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it's the simple truth; and as it's true, it shall stand.'" Compare this poem and Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar." PIPPA PASSES Mrs. Sutherland Orr writes that while Browning was one day strolling through Dulwich Wood "the image flashed upon him of someone walking ... alone through life; one apparently too obscure to leave a trace of his or her passage, yet exercising a lasting though unconscious influence at every step of it; and the image shaped itself into the little silk-winder of Asolo, Felippa, or Pippa." INTRODUCTION _Asolo in the Trevisan._ Asolo, a fortified medieval town at the foot of a hill surmounted by the ruins of a castle, and situated in the center of the silk-growing and silk-spinning industries, is in the province of Treviso about thirty-three miles northwest of Venice. 62. _Monsignor._ A title conferred upon prelates in the Roman Catholic church. This Monsignor is the chief personage in Part III, or _Night_.