Summary of The Altar

“The Altar” is an example of a shape poem, a poem whose lines are arranged in the shape of their subject matter. The lines of “The Altar” are shaped like an altar. Pretty cool, huh? This kind of verse is also sometimes called visual poetry. Let me stop now and clarify that visual poetry (the good kind, anyway) is not made simply by randomly chopping up lines anywhere so that they can be put into a certain shape.

Not at all. The skill required to make a shape poem will be heard by the ear when reading it, not merely seen on the page. To see (or rather hear) what I mean, for those listening to the audio, listen as I read it now. You can hear the lengthening, shortening, lengthening lines pile up on one another and into a tall structure with a broad face and equally broad base--held together by a slender, sturdy post. Both effect is achieved by the varying number of poetic feet in each couplet. The rhythm for each line is iambic, but the meter changes throughout. The couplets follow this pattern: pentameter, tetrameter, dimeter, dimeter, dimeter, dimeter, tetrameter, pentameter. As is always the case with shorter meters punctuated by rhyme (and the rhyming couplets of this poem also contribute significantly to the poem’s effect), the pace quickens with the shorter lines. This emphasis suggests more urgency-- or perhaps even intimacy. Likewise, the repeated words “altar,” “heart,” “frame,” “praise” (have I missed any?)-- also reinforce our sense of what the poem is saying through emphasis. The rhyming words at the end of each couplet are also worth examining. They are intentionally chosen and well chosen. I will just point out two pairs, the first and last. “Rears” and “tears” are emotion-laden words. While the literal meaning here of “rears” is to build or erect, it also suggests the anger, wildness, and resistance displayed by a rearing horse--or a rearing heart. “Tears,” too, denotes deep emotion, of course. Among all the other things we can say about this poem, we should remember that it is, like so many of Herbert’s poems, also a prayer. And as we saw in the turn from “I” to “Lord” in “The Collar” last week, we see a similar turn reflected in the final couplet here in the shift from “mine” to “thine".

And what is at the center of this altar-- mentioned first in the second line, then twice again, once in each short middle stanza? Heart. “A heart.” “My hard heart.” The stone from which this altar is made is the speaker’s hard heart, a heart so hard that only “thy pow’r” can cut it. No mere human workman’s tools can do this job.

This “broken altar” that is raised up is made of “a heart” ( “cemented with tears”). The stone of which this altar is made is a stony heart. This heart is the altar where God’s name is praised ; praised prayerfully without ceasing. The altar, first a place of sacrifice, is now a place of worship. And herein is found the metaphysical conceit: a stone altar is compared, through extended metaphor, to a hard heart. An altar exists in order to offer praise to God. (Even the stones, Luke says, will cry out, Jesus tells the religious leaders who tell him to stop the people from worshiping him.) So, too, does a human heart exist for the same purpose. Both ,a stone altar and a human heart, are made from materials that are hard to cut and shape, materials that must be put into a proper frame, reared, and sanctified in order to fulfill their purpose. Spiritual thirsty could be gained not the interest of physical intimacy, but the interest of deep spiritual awakening.