“The Altar” by George Herbert
The poem “The Altar” by George Herbert is one of the poems from The Temple (1633). It is a poem composed of 16 lines and aside from its striking visual appearance on the page the musicality of the poem is also remarkable. One reason for this is found in the word ART which has a prominent place in the poem, figuring both backwards, forwards and sideways (so to speak). The word art does not stand alone in the poem, yet the letters A-R-T are found in line 1 in “ALTAR” and in rears (ars, the word for art in Latin); in line 2 in “heart” and “tears” (art and ars); in line 3 in “parts” (art and ars); in line 5 in “HEART”; in line 9 in “part”; in line 10 in “heart”; in line 12 in “praise” (ars); in line 14 in “praise”; in line 15 in “SACRIFICE” (ars), and in line 16 in “ALTAR.” The word art is thus given a place of prominence in this short poem by being repeated - or parsed - at least twelve times, thirteen if the title is included. Perhaps it is the poet’s art that the poet places on the altar.
The author of the poem, George Herbert (1593-1633) was a Metaphysical poet. The traits of metaphysical poetry can be seen first in the wit of the shape of the poem. It looks like an altar. It is in fact an emblem poem, where content dictates form, enabling the poem to be both words on the page and a picture of the thing represented. Metaphysical poets crafted a poetry that blends intellect and emotion. To do this, their use of wit was key. Here Herbert also used words in capital letters that create a kind of chiasmus: ALTAR - HEART - SACRIFICE - ALTAR and the extended visual metaphor of the altar that is not broken — the art is whole; Herbert’s poetry has a holistic aspect.
In sixteen lines the poet has made a shape that perfectly marries the content expressed. The poem can be seen in three parts: the top of the altar, the supporting column, and the base of the structure. Each part of the shape of the altar focuses on something specific. The whole poem its linked by form and content. The first two lines are pentameters (5 beats per line) and the next lines (3-4) are tetrameters (4 beats per line). The pattern in the last four lines is inverted with tetrameters (lines 13-14) and pentameters (lines 15-16). The supporting column of the poem is written in dimeters.
In the first part or the top of the poem (lines 1-4), the focus lies on the artist who was made by the Lord. His capacity to make an alter is limited; he is only an imperfect human. The servant can only make a broken altar, of his heart and his tears, but the servant was made by the Lord, without human craftsmanship, and so in some way is perfected. It is possible that lines 3 and 4 reference Exodus 20.25 (quotations from the Bible are from the King James translation 1611, that Herbert would have read): “And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.”
The juxtaposition of creating something hard like cement with something liquid like tears (in line 2) is curious, and is developed in the lines that follow. The speaker of the poem addresses someone in vocative direct address, so a monologue addressing a “you” begins , the name “Lord” is used with the second person pronoun “thy” (your) in line 1. Because a poet is also always writing for a reader, the reader is also given the opportunity to participate in the direct address of the poem, somehow becoming a part of it, even if only as an observer.
My first year university students, writing about the poem without knowledge of Herbert’s biography, occasionally assumed that the poem was addressed to a woman who was a romantic love interest, with one student suggesting an analysis in two parts: “1) a man as cold as stone; 2) a love stronger than any will.” While there is no evidence of a romantic love intrigue, because no woman is named in the poem, the misreading is quite interesting because it does suggest how intimate and loving the speaker’s declaration to the Lord is (and, Herbert was after all, a friend and reader of John Donne, who did write such romantic love poems). Students also noted the rich sounds of the poem and the rhyming couplets. Several remarked on the lexical field suggesting depression (“broken,” “tears,” “alone,” “nothing,” “cut”).
The second part of the poem (lines 5-12) explores the quality of the servant’s heart, which is compared to a stone that only the divine loving power can cut or shape. Does this heart have capacity for emotion? The juxtaposition or oxymoron of speaking of a “hard heart” (line 10) is striking. The image is, in fact, found in the Bible, in Ezekiel 36.26, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.”
Stones may be cemented together to form an altar, as they also were to form Grecian or Roman pillars (which the poem also ressembles), but they are cut to the right shape first. The stony heart of the servant can only be cut by the Lord. And the parts of stone meet to give thanks and praise the name of the Lord. Rhythmically many of the words in this section are monosyllabic and make the rhythm feel staccato and rapid, along with the short iambic dimeter lines, which seem themselves to be cut from stone. But this section can also be read very slowly and meditatively, as if it were a kind of meaningful and hopeful prayer.
The third part suggests (in lines 13-16) that if the servant does not speak his thanks and praise to the Lord, the stones themselves will do it. There is an allusion here to the Gospel story where Luke’s narrative describes Jesus making a triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, and answering the criticism from the Pharisees about the exclamations of his disciples. Jesus says: “I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.” (Luke 19.40)
This part of the poem also uses the pronoun “I” for the first-person speaker of the poem for the first time, and in fact the shape of the poem could also correspond to the letter “I.”
The final lines of the poem are tetrameters (13-14) and pentameters (15-16), imitating the first four lines of the poem in reverse and enacting with a circular gesture of structure a kind of perfect closure for the poem. “The Altar” is indeed very carefully and poetically crafted. As such it is given by the servant-craftsman to the Lord on the altar of his heart. It looks like perfection on the page, and one may find a reason for that in the maker’s sacrifice in sanctifying the poetic art and craftsmanship, at least within the body of the poem. The final lines of the poem suggest an exchange between the Lord and the servant so that each receives something from the other. There could be another biblical reference here: the poem ends with the rhyme “mine/thine” which may be a biblical allusion to the Gospel of John 17.10 where Jesus prays to the Father, “And all mine are thine, and thine are mine…”
Or the lines might link to the story of the prodigal son in the Gospel of Luke. You may recall that the elder brother who did not leave his father was jealous of the attention and the special celebration given to the younger son who returned, so his father reminded him: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” (Luke 15.32)
Theologically speaking, the lines might register the words of the Suscipe prayer found in the Spiritual Exercises (1548) by Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) whom George Herbert, as a student of theology and an Anglican priest, may have read. The Spiritual Exercises were perhaps influenced by another author Herbert and Ignatius of Loyola had both read, Thomas A Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (first published in Latin, c 1471 or 1472), and particularly chapter 105 of book I, which speaks of giving oneself as a free offering to God.
As a priest, Herbert chose a life outside the limelight, becoming the pastor of a small church outside Salisbury at Bemerton. He lived during a period of considerable civil and religious strife, and in his own way seemed to be striving for peace. This poem probably speaks to his own priestly vocation, but it also clearly speaks of a way of communing that may override religious dissensions. And it speaks as well to his artistic vocation as a poet. The altar is seen visually through the poem, but as mentioned in part three, one may also see the emblem as the pronoun I, suggesting perhaps that the poet sacrifices himself to his art. A Rimbaud, with his “Je est un autre,” might appreciate that way of reading the poem, as might a Leonard Cohen, who in Anthem (1992) sang: “Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack, a crack in everything.” In this way, the poem as an art object transcends and meets the reader (no Christian faith required), showing that for anything worthwhile to be accomplished in life, some sacrifice is necessary. We can bring our broken selves, and by the sacrifice of application, involving the love and concentration required by craftsmanship, gift something to the world. There is also of course a deeper religious meaning that one can further explore by reading Herbert’s The Temple, a book that was sent in manuscript form to Nicholas Ferrar at the religious community formed at Little Gidding. Ferrar had the manuscript published by the university printer in Cambridge shortly after Herbert’s death in 1633. The book was a fine success, and was reprinted in six new editions by 1641.
Learn more about George Herbert at Cambridge Authors/Herbert
https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/cambridgeauthors/herbert/
Read Herbert in the best academic edition:
Helen Wilcox, The English Poems of George Herbert (Cambridge University Press, 2007)