The Divine Tragedy by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

GAMALIEL THE SCRIBE. / When Rabban Simeon -- upon whom be peace! -- / Taught in these Schools, he boasted that his pen / Had written no word that he could call his own, / But wholly and always had been consecrated / To the transcribing of the Law and Prophets. / He used to say, and never tired of saying, / The world itself was built upon the Law. / And ancient Hillel said, that whosoever / Gains a good name gains something for himself, / But he who gains a knowledge of the Law / Gains everlasting life. And they spake truly. / Great is the Written Law; but greater still / The Unwritten, the Traditions of the Elders, / The lovely words of Levites, spoken first / To Moses on the Mount, and handed down / From mouth to mouth, in one unbroken sound / And sequence of divine authority, / The voice of God resounding through the ages.

The Written Law is water; the Unwritten / Is precious wine; the Written Law is salt, / The Unwritten costly spice; the Written Law / Is but the body; the Unwritten, the soul / That quickens it and makes it breathe and live. / I can remember, many years ago, / A little bright-eyed school-boy, a mere stripling, / Son of a Galilean carpenter, / From Nazareth, I think, who came one day / And sat here in the Temple with the Scribes, / Hearing us speak, and asking many questions, / And we were all astonished at his quickness. / And when his mother came, and said: Behold / Thy father and I have sought thee, sorrowing; / He looked as one astonished, and made answer, / How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not / That I must be about my Father's business? / Often since then I see him here among us, / Or dream I see him, with his upraised face / Intent and eager, and I often wonder / Unto what manner of manhood he hath grown! / Perhaps a poor mechanic like his father, / Lost in his little Galilean village / And toiling at his craft, to die unknown / And he no more remembered among men.