The Altar
A broken ALTAR, Lord thy servant rears,
Made of a heart, and cemented with teares:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch'd the same
A HEART alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow'r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name:
That if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine,
And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.
by George Herbert 1633
George Herbert wrote
poetry after he retired from the clergy as part of his daily
devotionals. Herbert's The Alter, is a sonnet. A
sonnet is the highest form of literature in the English language.
There are specific rules for a sonnet. It must have 16 lines.
It must have proper rhythm, which is more important than rhyme.
Herbert uses the shape of an alter as a metaphor signifying how to come
to salvation, in humility one comes to God before an alter. Line
by line he takes the reader through his own salvation testimony, every
word and line is significant.
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