From: a poet To: The Great Poet

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, audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

My 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 the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

                                    - C.S Lewis

This is such a beautiful poem because of the imagery used that makes you think. I think some of the best poems are the ones that don't describe everything or explain everything so you have to think about what it means to the author and what it means to you. One line that when I read the poem stuck out to me was the first and second one. "From all my lame defeats and oh! much more, From all the victories that I seemed to score..." The way I understood it was applying it to my life. I am a sports player and am very competitive with almost everything. My lame defeats... not only my defeats in competition but it life. Things that I failed at that don't matter at all. All the victories I seemed to score... I looked at this two ways. Victories I seemed to score. Yes it was me that scored them but it was God who gave me that ability to win. Once again, victories i seemed to score, seemed, it doesn't really matter, does it? Deliver me...deliver me from my sins and my human ways. O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free...