“A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant reares, / Made of a heart, and cemented with teares”
The memorable rhyming couplet that opens the poem establishes what the poem is, who it is was written by and who it is dedicated to. The poet describes himself with humility as God’s “servant.” By declaring in words that the speaker is “rear[ing]” an altar, the poem itself (as well as the speaker’s heart) becomes the altar. This altar is broken because the speaker himself is frail and imperfect. It was raised with great pains (”cemented with tears”). The speaker dedicates this broken altar to God, hoping that it is found worthy despite his personal weakness.
“A HEART alone / Is such a stone”
In this line the symbol of the heart as a stone, and therefore as an altar, is established.
“O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine, / And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine”
In the final couplet, the speaker calls out to God directly. He asks for God’s sacrifice of Christ to become his, so that the speaker’s sacrifice of his altar/heart/poem can be sanctified (made holy) and accepted by God. The rhyming of “mine” and “thine” expresses one of the central themes of the poem: the speaker’s desire to dissolve his own identity into God’s.
