Rabbi ben Ezra

An inscription from lines 16 and 17 of the poem on a building at Ohio State University.

"Rabbi ben Ezra" is a poem by Robert Browning about the famous Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (1092Template:Ndash1167), one of the great Jewish poets and scholars of the 12th century. He wrote on grammar, astronomy, the astrolabe, and other topics.

Analysis

The poem begins: Template:Blockquote

It is not a biography of Abraham ibn Ezra; like all of Browning's historical poems, it is a free interpretation of the idea that ibn Ezra's life and work suggests to Browning. At the center of the poem is a theistic paradox that good might lie in the inevitability of its absence:

History

The poem was published in Browning's Dramatis Personae in 1864.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• Pebble in the Sky, a science fiction novel by Isaac Asimov that mentions the poem
• "Grow Old with Me", a song by John Lennon, based in part on Browning's poem