Explore "Ferishtah's Fancies" by Robert Browning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Quoth an inquirer, "Praise the Merciful! / My thumb which yesterday a scorpion nipped -- / (It swelled and blackened) -- lo, is sound again! / By application of a virtuous root / The burning has abated: that is well. / But now methinks I have a mind to ask, -- / Since this discomfort came of culling herbs / Nor meaning harm, -- why needs a scorpion be? / Yea, there began, from when my thumb last throbbed, / Advance in question-framing, till I asked / Wherefore should any evil hap to man -- / From ache of flesh to agony of soul -- / Since God's All-mercy mates All-potency? / Nay, why permits he evil to himself -- / Man's sin, accounted such? Suppose a world / Purged of all pain, with fit inhabitant -- / Man pure of evil in thought, word, and deed -- / Were it not well? Then, wherefore otherwise? / Too good result? But he is wholly good! / Hard to effect? Ay, were he impotent! / Teach me, Ferishtah!"
Said the Dervish: "Friend, / My chance, escaped to-day, was worse than thine: / I, as I woke this morning, raised my head, / Which never tumbled but stuck fast on neck. / Was not I glad and thankful!"