A Footnote To All Prayers

Here is the poem Dave used his talk today... ‘A Footnote To All Prayers’ by 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 idolators, crying unheard
 To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
 Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.