thee from the waking man! 
          Do I hold the Past
          Thus firm and fast
        Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? 
        This path so soft to pace shall lead
        Thro’ the magic of May to herself indeed! 
        Or narrow if needs the house must be,
        Outside are the storms and strangers:  we—­
        Oh, close, safe, warm, sleep I and she,
        —­I and she!”

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 57:  This note contains three burlesque sonnets whose chief interest is, that they are, with the exception of the unclaimed sonnet printed in the Monthly Repository in 1834, the first sonnets ever published by Browning.]

[Footnote 58:  One can scarcely read this poem without recalling the superb and not unsimilar episode in prose of another “great dramatic poet,” Landor’s Imaginary Conversation between the Empress Catherine and Princess Dashkof.]

[Footnote 59:  Mrs. Orr, Handbook, p. 313.]

30.  FERISHTAH’S FANCIES.

    [Published in November, 1884 (Poetical Works, 1898, Vol. 
    XVI. pp. 1-92).]

Ferishtah’s Fancies consists of twelve sections, each an argument in an allegory, Persian by presentment, modern or universal in intention.[60] Lightly laid in between the sections, like flowers between the leaves, are twelve lyrics, mostly love songs addressed to a beloved memory, each lyric having a close affinity with the preceding “Fancy.”  A humorous lyrical prologue, and a passionate lyrical epilogue, complete the work.  We learn from Mrs. Orr, that

“The idea of Ferishtah’s Fancies grew out of a fable by Pilpay, which Mr. Browning read when a boy.  He ... put this into verse; and it then occurred to him to make the poem the beginning of a series, in which the Dervish who is first introduced as a learner should reappear in the character of a teacher.  Ferishtah’s ‘fancies’ are the familiar illustrations by which his teachings are enforced."[61]

The book is Browning’s West-Eastern Divan, and it is written at nearly the same age as Goethe’s.  But, though there is a good deal of local colour in the setting, no attempt, as the motto warns us, is made to reproduce Eastern thought.  The “Persian garments” are used for a disguise, not as a habit; perhaps for the very reason that the thoughts they drape are of such intense personal sincerity.  The drapery, however, is perfectly transparent, and one may read “Robert Browning” for “Dervish Ferishtah” passim.