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.

The Apologist's Evening Prayer

      From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
      From all the victories that I seemed to score;
      From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
      At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
      From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
      Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

      Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
      of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
      From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
      O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
      Lord of the narrow gate and needle's eye,
      Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.