"Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is considered that Tennyson wrote it in

elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

; the narrator uses an

extended metaphor An extended metaphor, also known as a conceit or sustained metaphor, is the use of a single metaphor or analogy at length in a work of literature. It differs from a mere metaphor in its length, and in having more than one single point of contact bet ...

to compare death with crossing the "

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

" between the river of life, with its outgoing "flood", and the ocean that lies beyond

death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...

, the "boundless deep", to which we return.

Overview

Tennyson is believed to have written the poem (after suffering a serious illness) while on the sea, crossing the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay t ...

from

Aldworth Aldworth is a village and mainly farmland civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, near the boundary with Oxfordshire. Orthography and slight change of name Aldworth was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 by scribes whose orthograp ...

to Farringford on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...

. Separately, it has been suggested he may have written it on a yacht anchored in

Salcombe Salcombe is a popular resort town in the South Hams district of Devon, south west England. The town is close to the mouth of the Kingsbridge Estuary, mostly built on the steep west side of the estuary. It lies within the South Devon Area o ...

, where there is a moaning sandbar. "The words", he said, "came in a moment".Hill, Robert W., Jr., ed. (1971). ''Tennyson's poetry; authoritative texts, juvenilia and early responses, criticism''. New York:W. W. Norton & Company. . Shortly before he died, Tennyson told his son Hallam to "put 'Crossing the Bar' at the end of all editions of my poems". The poem contains four stanzas that generally alternate between long and short lines. Tennyson employs a traditional ABAB

rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB r ...

. Scholars have noted that the form of the poem follows the content: the wavelike quality of the long-then-short lines parallels the narrative thread of the poem. The extended metaphor of "crossing the bar" represents travelling serenely and securely from life through death. The Pilot is a metaphor for God, whom the speaker hopes to meet face to face. Tennyson explained, "The Pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him…

e is E, or e, is the fifth letter and the second vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''e'' (pronounced ); plur ...

that Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us."

Set to music

The words were set to music in April 1890 as a song for high voice and piano by

Charles Villiers Stanford Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (30 September 1852 – 29 March 1924) was an Anglo-Irish composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Romantic era. Born to a well-off and highly musical family in Dublin, Stanford was educated at the ...

and as a hymn, "Freshwater", for four-part chorus by

Sir Hubert Parry Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry, 1st Baronet (27 February 18487 October 1918) was an English composer, teacher and historian of music. Born in Richmond Hill, Bournemouth, Richmond Hill in Bournemouth, Parry's first major works appeared in 18 ...

(publ. 1893). Other settings include those by Sir Joseph Barnby, Geoffrey Shaw, Charles Ives,

Gwyneth Van Anden Walker Gwyneth Van Anden Walker (born 22 March 1947) is an American music educator and composer. Biography Walker was born in New York to a Quaker family and grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut. She began her first efforts at composition at an early age ...

and

John Philip Sousa John Philip Sousa ( ; November 6, 1854 – March 6, 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era known primarily for American military marches. He is known as "The March King" or the "American March King", to dis ...

. In 2012 the poem was set to music by

Rani Arbo Rani Arbo and the band Daisy Mayhem, consisting of Andrew Kinsey, Anand Nayak, and Scott Kessel, are an American musical group whose style combines folk, country blues, progressive bluegrass, jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in ...

, with a subsequent choral arrangement by Peter Amidon. A slightly rearranged version of the latter was later produced by

The Spooky Men's Chorale The Spooky Men's Chorale is a group of Australian male singers. Most reside in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, but some are from Western Australia. Their repertoire consists largely of songs either written or arranged by their dire ...

and included on their album called ''Warm''.Spooky Men's Chorale – Crossing The Bar
YouTube

Text

In popular culture

The poem is humorously referenced in Walt Disney's 1942 Goofy cartoon '' The Olympic Champ''; while Goofy haphazardly attempts the

pole vault Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the Myc ...

, the narrator states that the track-and-field event reminds him of Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar", and quotes the poem's first stanza. In the darkly humorous "We Will All Go Together When We Go", humourist/songwriter

Tom Lehrer Thomas Andrew Lehrer (; born April 9, 1928) is an American former musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician, having lectured on mathematics and musical theater. He is best known for the pithy and humorous songs that he recorded in ...

sings of a humanity-ending nuclear holocaust; the song includes the line, "and let there be no moaning of the bar", implying that no one will be left to mourn the war's victims. The poem has also found its way into the DLC Frozen Wilds of the videogame ''

Horizon Zero Dawn ''Horizon Zero Dawn'' is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The plot follows Aloy, a young hunter in a world overrun by machines, who sets out to uncover her past. The ...

'', where it is mentioned as the favourite poem of the AI CYAN.

Notes

External links

"Crossing the Bar" poem text
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crossing The Bar Poetry by Alfred, Lord Tennyson British poems 1889 poems Poems about death