The Paradox.

Robert Browning pulled a poem from imagination written from an ancient Rabbi's feelings and thoughts that stikes me to the core with a sing-song wave of comfort and truth everytime I read it. As if my voice were somehow more beautiful when the words drip like sweet smelling essence from my lips, my heart is suddenly wrapped in a fuzzy security blanket that smells like it was stored in a box with all my good memories for the moment I would hear this poem again. Here are some stanzas I most enjoy right now, so that you may fall devotely in love with its simple pleasure too.

Stanzas from Rabbi Ben Ezra by Robert Browning

GROW old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,	5
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?”
Not that, admiring stars,	10
It yearned, “Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth’s brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!	15
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed	20
On joy, to solely seek and find a feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?
Rejoice we are allied	25
To that which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.	30
Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;	35
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!
For thence,—a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,	40
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.