FROM C. S. LEWIS
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name,
murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace
in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the
thing thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all
prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore
dream,
And all men in their praying,
self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet
thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond
desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if thou take them at
their word.
Take not, oh Lord, our literal
sense. Lord, in thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor
translate.
In Christ's love, Fr. Robert Pax
