thumb|right|An inscription from lines 16 and 17 of the poem on a building at [[Ohio State University<!--Wikipedians do not use "The" as part of Ohio State's name; it is considered a marketing gimmick, and routinely deleted.-->.]]
"Rabbi ben Ezra" is a poem by Robert Browning about the famous Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra (10921167), 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:
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: