| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | Israel’s Spiritual Lamp | | By George Eliot |
| | (From “The Spanish Gypsy”)
I ABIDE | |
| By that wise spirit of listening reverence | |
| Which marks the boldest doctors of our race. | |
| For Truth, to us, is like a living child | |
| Born of two parents: if the parents part | 5 |
| And will divide the child, how shall it live? | |
| Or, I will rather say: Two angels guide | |
| The paths of man, both aged and yet young, | |
| As angels are, ripening through endless years. | |
| On one he leans: some call her Memory, | 10 |
| And some Tradition; and her voice is sweet, | |
| With deep mysterious accords: the other, | |
| Floating above, holds down a lamp which streams | |
| A light divine and searching on the earth, | |
| Compelling eyes and footsteps. Memory yields | 15 |
| Yet clings with loving cheek, and shines anew, | |
| Reflecting all the rays of that bright lamp | |
| Our angel Reason holds. We had not walked, | |
| But for Tradition; we walk evermore | |
| To higher paths, by brightening Reason’s lamp. | 20 | | | |
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