User:MainlyTwelve/altar

"The Altar" is a poem by the Welsh-born poet and Anglican priest George Herbert, first published in Herbert's collection The Temple. It is an example of an Altar poem and of concrete poetry. It is one of Herbert's best known poems.

Publication and shape
The Temple, the book in which the poem was first published, was only printed after Herbert's death. It is the first poem in the section of the collection titled The Church, and, along with "Easter Wings" it was one of two concrete poems in the whole collection. The poem represents an altar in its shape on the page and is one of two poems written by Herbert involving altars. The other is shorter and was originally written in Greek. The earlier, shorter poem provided a model for the later piece. The shorter work has been referred to as a "meditation and a prayer," and is not a concrete poem.

The poem's shape was inspired by Classical (or "pagan") altars and Greek poems written to reflect their shapes. Publication of the Greek Anthology first introduced English readers to the form in 1555. Over the course of the poem's publication, the altar's shape has been altered reflect ecclesiastical attitudes different from those at the time The Temple's first printing. Some later editions include images of altars around normally formatted text.

Contents
Like the other poems in The Temple, "The Altar" is a devotional poem. Herbert's earlier poems mostly expressed didactic themes.

Influence and adaptations
Beyond being emblematic of altar poetry, "The Altar" has inspired several explicitly ekphrastic poetic responses. The piece has been set to music, most likely in an arrangement by John Playford.