Lines 1-4 Summary

Lines 1-2

A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant rears,
Made of a heart and cemented with tears; 

• Before we begin, let's talk big "picture." Did you happen to notice that "The Altar" is arranged so that the words make the shape of an altar?
• What's an altar, you might ask? This, Shmoopers, is an altar—as is this.
• Poems like this that are arranged into a pretty little shape are called concrete poems, or shape poems, or even visual poems. Herbert wrote another famous one of these called "Easter Wings," which you can check out right here. 
• (And if you feel like looking at some concrete poems written by people not named George Herbert, you can go right here.)
• Here's something else to consider. The first thing we encounter in this poem is an image, a picture of an altar.
• While poets usually make their art with words, "The Altar" is a poem in which the visual (the shape) is just as important as the words.
• Whew, now that that is out of the way we can start talking about the words.
• The speaker begins by talking about an altar. Thanks for the clue there, title. Also, the ALL CAPS approach lets us know that the altar is going to be an important thing in this poem. 
• He is addressing God (that makes sense too), and says that the Lord's servant "rears" a broken altar.
• That altar is made out of "a heart" (whatever that means) and "cemented with tears."
• In other words, God's servant (most likely our speaker) is building a metaphorical altar out of his heart. It is a broken altar, but it's not all broken. 
• The various pieces of the altar are held together ("cemented") with the servant's tears.
• Okay this is definitely a gnarly metaphor. A broken altar made out of a heart that is also cemented with tears? 
• Let's start by talking more about what exactly an altar is. It is a special table used in religious ceremonies (consecrations, sacrifices, and rituals of all kinds). In the most general sense, an altar is used when people are doing things for God—praying, sacrificing, etc.
• So, if an altar is made out of a heart, this is the speaker's way of saying that he will be using his heart to pray, worship, or sacrifice to God. That's the best way to think of it.
• Now, there are at least two reasons why this special heart-altar could be "broken."
• First, God is perfect, and humans are not. Everything humans do is, in a sense, "broken," or imperfect—at least when compared to everything that God, a.k.a. Mr. Perfection, can do.
• Secondly, human beings sin—they make mistakes and do bad things. This heart-altar is "broken" because it is made from a sinful heart. Got it? Great.
• As for those tears, think about it like this: the altar is associated with sacrifice, and sacrifice involves pain.
• Therefore, the altar is held together by the speaker's tears because he's making a sacrifice, plain and simple.
• Just in case you were wondering, our friend here lifted this whole idea about offering a broken, sinful heart to God from the Old Testament. We give you Psalms 51:17: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." 
• The speaker may also, however, have a passage from the New Testament in mind: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1). (You can read the whole chapter right here if you like.)
• Whew, we need a break after this biblical workout we just had.
• Let's take a quick peek at the meter first, though.
• Like about a zillion other English poets, Herbert utilizes iambic pentameter in these lines. 
• This means that each line contains five ("penta-" means five) iambs (two-syllable pairs in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed one).
• You can read more about the form and meter of this poem over at… well, "Form and Meter."

Lines 3-4

   Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
    No workman's tool hath touch'd the same. 

• The speaker continues to describe the altar he has made. He tells God that the altar's "parts" haven't been changed at all.
• In other words, the individual pieces that the speaker has used to build it are exactly the way God made ("frame[d]") them.
• Let's say you wanted to build a bird house out of pieces of wood that you found in your backyard, and decided that you weren't going to cut the pieces of wood at all but just arrange them as you found them (no sanding, no cutting, no anything). Yep, that's what the speaker is saying here. He makes that very clear in line 4 when he says that no tools have "touch'd" the altar's parts. He has collected the materials for his altar and built it without shaping them, altering them, or really doing anything to them. 
• Now, part of the reason the speaker is being so specific about all this stuff is because he's trying to stick to the rules God lays down about altars in Exodus, the second book of the Old Testament.
• In chapter 20, verse 25, God says that if his followers are going to build him an altar, they cannot use "hewn stone"—i.e., stone that is been cut or shaped by "tools."
• Okay, cool, but why can't they use "hewn stone"? Great question. Many have interpreted this passage from Exodus as God's way of telling his followers to keep things simple and pure.
• It's almost as if God were saying, "Hey guys, it's totally cool if you want to build an altar so you can worship me, but keep it simple and basic. Use natural, pure materials, and don't go crazy trying to build some super elaborate altar."
• Lots of commentators say that God wanted things this way because he knew that, if his people were allowed to "hew" stones and build elaborate altars, they would be more likely to carve little figurines and other images, and perhaps begin to worship them instead of God. This evil threat was called idolatry, and it shows up in the Old Testament in about… oh, 976 different places. (You can read all about it right here.)
• So, now that we've had our little biblical history lesson for the day, how the heck does this all relate to lines 3-4 of "The Altar"?
• Well, for one, the speaker says he is building an altar. To prove that he is following all the old-school rules, he says it is composed entirely of natural elements (no fancy masonry, no clever carving, nothing).
• Cool, so his altar complies with biblical code, with all of the requirements laid down in Exodus. 
• Remember, however, that the "altar" isn't exactly a real altar, and that this is also a metaphor for the speaker's own sacrifice, or offering of himself. The speaker offers his heart—himself—in all his imperfect glory.
• He is a sinner and has made mistakes, and yet he is offering himself to God. He's not going to sugar-coat anything or try to "carve" or "hew" himself into some pretty little shape just to impress God.
• In addition, keep in mind that the altar is also the poem itself. It is called "The Altar," and it is arranged in the shape of a pretty little altar.
• In a way, then, the speaker is also saying that the poem-altar is an imperfect work of art. It is merely an arrangement of materials the speaker has taken from his brain.
• If we could paraphrase the speaker's whole point here, it would go like this: "Hi God, here is my altar-poem for you. I haven't done anything too fancy. I've just done my best and written down some things that came to mind. I didn't labor and craft and spend a whole lot of time doing this."
• Now, there is definitely some irony going on here.
• The poem is absolutely, 100% "hewn." It is a carefully and elaborately arranged piece of art.
• The speaker sticks closely to whatever meter he uses, he follows a regular rhyme scheme (AABBCC—more on this in "Form and Meter"), and the whole thing is carefully structured to resemble… an altar. Sheesh, these poets are always pretending to be so modest, aren't they?
• We are puzzled, to say the least, but this puzzlement is actually a hallmark of Herbert's style. 
• He is often classified as one of the metaphysical poets, a group of dudes in the seventeenth century who wrote elaborate, sometimes confusing, but also thought-provoking poems.
• Their signature move was the conceit, an elaborate metaphor comparing two radically different things in a surprising way (a great example is when Donne compares his desire to have sex with a woman to a flea—that's right). You can read a little bit about conceits right here.
• Now, while Herbert doesn't really employ a conceit here per se, all the confusion we're experiencing gives the poem a… well, metaphysical flavor.
• Lastly, before we go any further, did you notice that these lines are a little shorter than the first two?
• While lines 1-2 are written in iambic pentameter, lines 3-4 are written in iambic tetrameter, which just means there are four iambs ("tetra-" means four) in each line instead of 5. Again, check out "Form and Meter" for more on that.