The Altar

We've mentioned a few times that Herbert is a devotional poet, which just means that his poetry is devoted to God—to the whole series of issues related to praising God (offering things to him, praying to him, etc.). We've seen how the speaker of the "The Altar" describes his poem as a series of "stones" that will "praise" God long after he is dead and gone, but you can literally pick up just about any Herbert poem and find something related to the question of praising God (how to do it, what it entails, and the like).

Take "The Temper" as an example. In the poem's first lines, the speaker asks "How should I praise thee, Lord! How should my rhymes / Gladly engrave thy love in steel" (1-2). In "The Elixer," the speaker asks God to teach him how to do everything as if "for Thee" (4). In "The Thanksgiving" the speaker says, "Thy love I will turn back on thee" (21), while in an untitled sonnet not included in The Temple, the speaker notes that "Each cloud distills thy [God's] praise" (4).