George Herbert was a Welsh-born poet , orator and Anglican priest and is recognized as "one of the foremost British devotional lyricists. Herbert was largely raised in England and received good education that led to his admission in 1609 as a student Trinity College, Cambridge. Then he became the University's Public Orator and he attracted the attention of King James I. In 1624 and briefly in 1625 he served in the Parliament of England. Herbert wrote poetry in English, Latin and Greek, and all of Herbert's poetry were published in The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations. This collection featured such works as the "The Altar", "The Storm", and "Love". George Herbert's "The Altar" is a perfect example of pattern poetry or a pattern poem, which is a arrangement of linguistic elements in which the typographical effect is more important in conveying meaning than verbal significance.
Here is an extract of George Herbert's "The Altar":
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.
Herbert's poems have been characterized by a deep religious devotion, linguistic precision, metrical agility, and the ingenious use of conceit. Sam Taylor Coleridge wrote of Herbert's diction that "nothing can be more pure, manly, or unaffected,"and he is ranked with Donne as one of the greatest metaphysical poets.
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