The Altar

George Herbert

Edited by Jack Lynch

Shape poems like this are almost impossible to format in web pages. What works on one screen often doesn’t work on others, so you’ll have to live with this rough approximation.

The copy-text is The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations (London, 1633).

A broken Altar, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart and cemented with tears;
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workman’s 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.
Oh, let thy blessed Sacrifice be mine,
And sanctify this Altar to be thine.

Notes

rears: Builds up, constructs.