8. _Charles._ Carlo Alberto, King of Sardinia. He had used severe measures against "Young Italy," the party founded by Mazzini.
19. _Metternich._ A noted Austrian diplomat and one of the most powerful enemies of Italian freedom.
75. _Duomo._ The most famous church in Padua.
78. _Tenebræ._ _Darkness._ A religious service commemorative of the crucifixion. Fifteen lighted candles are put out one at a time, symbolizing the growing darkness of the world up to the time of the crucifixion.
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.
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.
The title means, The Chief Good. The poem came out in _Asolando_ in 1889.
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.'"