Crossing the Bar – Alfred Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.

Context
The English poet Alfred Tennyson was born in Sommersby, England on
August 6, 1809, twenty years after the start of the French Revolution and
toward the end of the Napoleonic Wars. He was the fourth of twelve
children born to George and Elizabeth Tennyson. His father, a church
reverend, supervised his sons’ private education, though his heavy
drinking impeded his ability to fulfill his duties. His mother was an avid
supporter of the Evangelical movement, which aimed to replace nominal
Christianity with a genuine, personal religion. The young Alfred
demonstrated an early flair for poetry, composing a full-length verse
drama at the age of fourteen. In 1827, when he was eighteen, he and his
brother Charles published an anonymous collection entitled Poems by
Two Brothers, receiving a few vague complimentary reviews.
That same year, Tennyson left home to study at Trinity College,
Cambridge, under the supervision of William Whewell, the great
nineteenth-century scientist, philosopher, and theologian. University life
exposed him to the most urgent political issue in his day—the question of
Parliamentary Reform, which ultimately culminated in the English
Reform Bill of 1832. Although Tennyson believed that reform was long
overdue, he felt that it must be undertaken cautiously and gradually; his
university poems show little interest in politics.
Tennyson soon became friendly with a group of undergraduates calling
themselves the “Apostles,” which met to discuss literary issues. The
group was led by Arthur Henry Hallam, who soon became Tennyson’s
closest friend. Tennyson and Hallam toured Europe together while still
undergraduates, and Hallam later became engaged to the poet’s sister
Emily. In 1830, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical, to Hallam’s
great praise. However, within the larger critical world, this work, along
with Tennyson’s 1832 volume including “The Lady of Shalott” and “The
Lotos-Eaters,” met with hostile disparagement; the young poet read his
reviews with dismay.
In 1833, no longer able to afford college tuition, Tennyson was living
back at home with his family when he received the most devastating
blow of his entire life: he learned that his dear friend Hallam had died
suddenly of fever while traveling abroad. His tremendous grief at the
news permeated much of Tennyson’s later poetry, including the great
elegy “In Memoriam.” This poem represents the poet’s struggles not only
with the news of his best friend’s death, but also with the new
developments in astronomy, biology, and geology that were diminishing
man’s stature on the scale of evolutionary time; although Darwin’sOrigin
of Species did not appear until 1859, notions of evolution were already in
circulation, articulated in Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830-33)
and Robert Chambers’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
(1844).
Tennyson first began to achieve critical success with the publication of
his Poems in 1842, a work that include “Ulysses,”“Tithonus,” and other
famous short lyrics about mythical and philosophical subjects. At the
time of publication, England had seen the death of Coleridge, Shelley,
Byron, Keats, and indeed all of the great Romantic poets except
Wordsworth; Tennyson thus filled a lacuna in the English literary scene.
In 1845, he began receiving a small government pension for his poetry.
In 1850, Wordsworth, who had been Britain’s Poet Laureate, died at the
age of 80; upon the publication of “In Memoriam,” Tennyson was named
to succeed him in this honor. With this title he became the most popular
poet in Victorian England and could finally afford to marry Emily
Sellwood, whom he had loved since 1836. The marriage began sadly—the
couple’s first son was stillborn in 1851—but the couple soon found
happiness: in 1853 they were able to move to a secluded country house
on the Isle of Wight, where they raised two sons named Hallam and
Lionel.
Tennyson continued to write and to gain popularity. His later poetry
primarily followed a narrative rather than lyrical style; as the novel
began to emerge as the most popular literary form, poets began
searching for new ways of telling stories in verse. For example, in
Tennyson’s poem “Maud,” a speaker tells his story in a sequence of short
lyrics in varying meters; Tennyson described the work as an
experimental “monodrama.” Not only were his later verses concerned
with dramatic fiction, they also examined current national political
drama. As Poet Laureate, Tennyson represented the literary voice of the
nation and, as such, he made occasional pronouncements on political
affairs. For example, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854) described
a disastrous battle in the Crimean War and praised the heroism of the
British soldiers there. In 1859, Tennyson published the first four Idylls of
the King, a group of twelve blank-verse narrative poems tracing the story
of the legendary King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This
collection, dedicated to Prince Albert, enjoyed much popularity among
the royal family, who saw Arthur’s lengthy reign as a representation of
Queen Victoria’s 64-year rule (1837-1901).
In 1884, the Royals granted Tennyson a baronetcy; he was now known as
Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He dedicated most of the last fifteen years of his
life to writing a series of full-length dramas in blank verse, which,
however, failed to excite any particular interest. In 1892, at the age of 83,
he died of heart failure and was buried among his illustrious literary
predecessors at Westminster Abbey. Although Tennyson was the most
popular poet in England in his own day, he was often the target of
mockery by his immediate successors, the Edwardians and Georgians of
the early twentieth century. Today, however, many critics consider
Tennyson to be the greatest poet of the Victorian Age; and he stands as
one of the major innovators of lyric and metrical form in all of English
poetry.

Sparknotes Analysis
Summary
The speaker heralds the setting of the sun and the rise of the evening
star, and hears that he is being called. He hopes that the ocean will not
make the mournful sound of waves beating against a sand bar when he
sets out to sea. Rather, he wishes for a tide that is so full that it cannot
contain sound or foam and therefore seems asleep when all that has been
carried from the boundless depths of the ocean returns back out to the
depths.
The speaker announces the close of the day and the evening bell, which
will be followed by darkness. He hopes that no one will cry when he
departs, because although he may be carried beyond the limits of time
and space as we know them, he retains the hope that he will look upon
the face of his “Pilot” when he has crossed the sand bar.

Form
This poem consists of four quatrain stanzas rhyming ABAB. The first and
third lines of each stanza are always a couple of beats longer than the
second and fourth lines, although the line lengths vary among the
stanzas.

Commentary
Tennyson wrote “Crossing the Bar” in 1889, three years before he died.
The poem describes his placid and accepting attitude toward death.
Although he followed this work with subsequent poems, he requested
that “Crossing the Bar” appear as the final poem in all collections of his
work.
Tennyson uses the metaphor of a sand bar to describe the barrier
between life and death. A sandbar is a ridge of sand built up by currents
along a shore. In order to reach the shore, the waves must crash against
the sandbar, creating a sound that Tennyson describes as the “moaning
of the bar.” The bar is one of several images of liminality in Tennyson’s
poetry: in “Ulysses,” the hero desires “to sail beyond the sunset”; in
“Tithonus”, the main character finds himself at the “quiet limit of the
world,” and regrets that he has asked to “pass beyond the goal of
ordinance.”
The other important image in the poem is one of “crossing,” suggesting
Christian connotations: “crossing” refers both to “crossing over” into the
next world, and to the act of “crossing” oneself in the classic Catholic
gesture of religious faith and devotion. The religious significance of
crossing was clearly familiar to Tennyson, for in an earlier poem of his,
the knights and lords of Camelot “crossed themselves for fear” when they
saw the Lady of Shalott lying dead in her boat. The cross was also where
Jesus died; now as Tennyson himself dies, he evokes the image again. So,
too, does he hope to complement this metaphorical link with a spiritual
one: he hopes that he will “see [his] Pilot face to face.”

Practical Criticism
In 'Crossing the Bar', Tennyson is speaking about his own impending
death. Within the poem, the image of the sea is used to represent the
'barrier' between life and death. The construction of this metaphor
centres on the image of 'crossing the bar'; a 'bar' is physically a bar of
sand in shallow water. The 'bar' which Tennyson must cross, however,
can only be crossed in one direction. This is made explicit in a couple of
ways by the poet.

Firstly, we should consider the wider imagery of the poem. The poem
opens with the phrase 'Sunset and evening star', immediately placing the
reader in a setting at the end of the day. The metaphor can be extended
to represent a late stage in the poet's life. This reading is supported by
the opening of the third stanza: 'Twilight and evening bell, / And after
that the dark!' Time is progressing as the poem develops, and after each
reference to physical time, Tennyson makes a personal reference to his
future:

'And may there be no moaning of the bar, / When I put out to sea'

'And may there be no sadness of farewell, / When I embark'

The clear reference to Tennyson's 'moving on' enables us to interpret the

image of evening as representing old age. The notion of passing time,
evident in the physical darkening of the sky from 'sunset' to 'twilight' to
'dark' is echoed in the rhythm of the poem. Clearly, the poem speaks
about the sea, about a tide which 'turns again home'. The tide, we are
reminded, has done this before; its rhythm will not be interrupted by the
death of the poet. The lengths of the lines alternate between 10, six and
four syllables with no fixed rotation:

10 But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

6 Too full for sound and foam,
10 When that which drew from out the boundless deep
4 Turns again home.

The differing lengths of lines evoke the movement of a tide washing upon
a beach, something which we all recognise to be cyclic.

Secondly, in considering how the poet has constructed the 'bar' between
life and death, we must look at the specifics of his language. The poet is
certain of his destination:

'When I put out to sea'

'When I embark'
'When I have crossed the bar'

The repetition of when makes it clear to the reader that the event the
poet is discussing is firmly placed in the future; it will happen, but hasn't
happened yet. We can contrast this to the use of indefinite phrases in
the poem:

'And may there be no moaning of the bar'

'And may there be no sadness of farewell'
'I hope to see my Pilot face to face'

Tennyson makes a clear distinction between events which he knows will

happen, and events which he hopes will happen. He cannot assure that
there will be 'no sadness of farewell', so he cannot solidify the matter
within the poem itself.

The final stanza of the poem is particularly interesting, and deserves

some consideration within itself:

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

There are three aspects of this final stanza that are immediately striking;
the capitalisations of 'Time', 'Place' and 'Pilot'. We capitalise proper
nouns, such as names and locations, suggesting that Tennyson sees
'Time and Place' as a specific location, such as 'London', and 'his Pilot' as
a personal figure. This adds to the element of certainty in the poem:
Tennyson has in mind a location in which he will end, and though he can
only 'hope' to see his 'Pilot', he has an image he aspires to meet with.

Stanza-wise Poem Summary & Analysis

Crossing the Bar is about death. Which sounds bleak! But it really isn’t,
in fact the narrator states twice that they don’t want people to moan or
be sorrowful about their situation. The poem uses the metaphor of a
voyage at sea to describe the journey from life to death. Although
Tennyson is famed for his poems based on mythology this poem does not
fall under that umbrella except for a possible reference to a “pilot” which
I have theorised may be an elusion to a mythological creature such as the
“ferryman”.
The poem is about the journey into death from life and was written by
Tennyson in his advancing years when he was starting to think about
death (No surprises there!) It is written in free verse in four stanzas
which each contain four lines. It contains a strict ABAB rhyming pattern.
Despite the gloomy subject matter the poem is never dull or gloomy in its
tone, perhaps the rhyming pattern was put in place in order to avoid this.
It seems to view death almost as an adventure. The poem is presumably
not autobiographical (It is nearly impossible to write a poem whilst
dead!) but is told from a first person perspective.

Ist Stanza
The very first line of this stanza puts the poem in a particular time of day.
The evening star that it describes is another name for Venus, Venus is
known as both the Evening Star and the Morning star dependent on
whether it is winter or summer which means this poem is based in the
winter. Whilst Venus represents the goddess of love this is certainly no
love poem and its inclusion is clearly just to point to what the “time” is.
I’m not sure what the narrator is referencing when they mention a “clear
call” the poem is quite dated, but it doesn’t appear to be a nautical term.
Perhaps this line is meant to be taken literally. Maybe it is made to
suggest that the narrator’s voice carries, perhaps due to the weather or
the location.
The bar that is referenced is the line between living and dying so when
the narrator says there is to be no moaning at the bar effectively they are
saying that there shouldn’t be any sadness or complaining about their
passing. Throughout this poem the narrator makes references to being at
sea. Travelling at sea is used as a metaphor for the journey from life on
into death.

IInd Stanza
The first line of this stanza is rather quaint sounding. It describes the
current being very minimal. It does so in a way that sounds beautiful.
Does this line denote that the narrator’s journey to the afterlife is a
peaceful one? Dying in their sleep perhaps? The idea of the full tide
suggests that the metaphorical ship that is being sailed is in deep water.
The lack of sound and foam denotes that the vessel is in the deep sea
which in turn suggests that it isn’t at the start of the journey but nearer
the end. Note how the narrator doesn’t say this but subtly hints, leaving
clues for a reader like Hansel and Gretel leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.
The third line of this stanza is even more nuanced. What it is talking
about drawing from the “boundless deep” IE the sea, isn’t at all clear but
it likely the narrator is still referencing the tide as this seems to be the
theme for this stanza. It then continues to say it turns again home. This
suggests that the tide is turning; does this mean that it is becoming less
calm? It’s doubtful, but it certainly doesn’t suggest that the narrator isn’t
going to cross over after all, the tide isn’t going to carry them “back to
shore”.
IIIrd Stanza
Twilight once again describes the time at which events take place but
also help to create a visual picture of the surroundings. The use of
evening bell may be used here to evoke images of the funeral toll often
associated with death. The next line would certainly lend credence to
that idea as following the bell there is darkness is this a sign that the
narrator has finally passed on? One thing is clear and that is that
narrator doesn’t want people to make a big deal out of their passing as
they reiterate the sentiment from the first stanza by saying that they
don’t want sadness.
Their passing to the other side is referred to as “embarking” which fits
nicely in with the nautical theme and almost makes it sound like the
experience is a bit of an adventure, which holds it contrast with the
descriptions that have made the episode seem serene and peaceful.

IVth Stanza
The theme of time and place are seemingly prominent throughout this
poem as you can see as they have been used several times throughout the
narrative. And it is mentioned once again at the beginning of the stanza.
This stanza seems to act almost like a summary detailing a very much
abridged version of the journey that has taken the narrator from their
birth up to their eventual demise. When they talk of the flood I think this
is another way of describing the “endless sea” that has carried them
towards their destination, their passing into death.
When the narrator talks about the pilot they are effectively referring to
the person that has controlled their journey. This could be the grim
reaper, or the ferryman! (These are characters from mythology that help
people transition to the afterlife) but it could also be a reference to god.
Perhaps the narrator wants to “meet their maker”. Crossing the bar is a
phrase that essentially means crossing over from life into death. It is also
the name of the poem ending on this line gives it a a prominence.

Critical Analysis
The sunset and evening star have come; it is time to go to sea. The
fullness of the tide will peacefully draw home the speaker. Soon it is even
later: twilight and the evening bell, and then darkness. It truly is time to
go, without sadness. The stream may take him far beyond “Time and
Place,” hopefully to his ultimate destination where he will see his “Pilot
face to face” after crossing the bar.
This short but evocative poem is often placed at the end of volumes of
Tennyson’s poems, as he requested. He wrote it in 1889 when he was 80
years old and recovering from a serious illness at sea, crossing the Solent
from Aldworth to Farringford on the Isle of Wight, off the mainland of
England. It is said that Tennyson composed it in twenty minutes.
Tennyson’s illness and old age may have contributed to this very
personal and memorable meditation on death.
The poem contains four stanzas of four lines each, with a traditional
ABAB rhyme scheme. It is written as an elegy, utilizing an extended
metaphor of a sailor crossing the sandbar between the tidal area and the
sea to represent a human being passing from life to existence beyond
death.
The poem opens by evoking the fall of night, a reference to the poet being
in the twilight of his years. The evening star points his way, and he feels
the “clear call” of death. He is almost ready; the poem is tinged with
excitement and acceptance. He expects the tide will be full, carrying him
smoothly and peacefully out of life, just as it carried him in. This process
reflects his internal contentment with his absorption into the natural
process of life and death. There should be “no moaning” when the time
finally comes.
In the last two stanzas, the time has come; it is moments away from
darkness. He expects no sadness, whether it is his or that of others, when
he departs. The reason not to mourn is that he has hope to see his Pilot,
that is, God, face to face once he has passed into the afterlife.
As many critics and readers have observed, this poem contains many of
the same themes and images that the poet has used throughout his
oeuvre. There is the sea voyage, the solitary mariner, the patterns of life
and death, and the setting sun. Thus it combines themes from “Ulysses”
and “Tithonus,” as well as other poems (including an allusion to Donne’s
“Meditation 17,” from which “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is taken), to
provide a final statement about death. In “Ulysses,” the hero yearns for
life despite approaching death and fights vigorously against the quiet,
complacent passing into the afterlife or even the nothingness that
Tithonus would welcome. As critic David Sonstroem notes, “Tithonus” is
about “rest and stasis rather than adventure and motion, where
“adventure or aspiration is undesirable and unnatural.” Tithonus can no
longer appreciate the journey or contemplate his existence with any
hopefulness, whereas the poet of “Crossing the Bar” expresses optimism
because he not only will reach the end but also may find what lies
beyond.
Indeed, in “Crossing the Bar,” death is peaceful and natural, a welcome
and fitting pause to a life lived well. In other poems that use a sea voyage
as a metaphor for death, Tennyson presents it as more disturbing, more
confusing; “The Lady of Shalott,” “Morte d’Arthur,” and “Lancelot and
Elaine” are all examples of the poet not yet seeing such a voyage as
peaceful. Sonstroem writes that “all these contradictions [among the
earlier poems] vanish, yet all the allusions to the earlier poems retain
their relevance: Tithonus’ longing for death is to be granted, yet the
death is seen in terms of Ulysses’ desire—a sea-voyage of discovery.”
Some writers have chosen to see a bit of Hallam in the Pilot; after all,
reflecting on his friend Hallam's death guided so many of Tennyson’s
thoughts about death. But given Tennyson’s cultural context, it is very
likely that the identity of the Pilot is the Christian God. Jesus is
considered the pilot of the Church and guides the Christian’s life. Seeing
God face to face is a Biblical theme. Furthermore, the wordplay of
“crossing” a “bar” suggests the cross of Jesus, the transformational event
that, in Christianity, enables people to be reconciled to God and reach
Heaven, which is beyond the Earth’s “Time and Place.”

Notes
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar” is a sixteen-line poem
divided into four four-line stanzas of differing metrical structure. The
predominantly iambic lines vary in length, ranging from four-syllable
lines (dimeters) to ten-syllable, iambic pentameter lines. The stanzas
follow a consistent abab rhyme pattern.
The opening line establishes the poem’s temporal setting, an unspecified
ship that is ready to sail at sunset. As the sun descends, the light of the
evening star, a beacon for mariners, rises. Line 9 again draws attention
to the approaching evening but calls it “twilight” rather than “sunset.”
Once the final rays of light disappear, darkness will cover the world. This
element neatly divides the poem into two sections, each containing 2
stanzas.
On the literal level, Tennyson’s poem begins with the barest elements of
setting. A ship is about to set sail on a long voyage at “Sunset and
evening star.” After a formal announcement, the “one clear call,” the
vessel will sail out of the harbor, across the sandbar at the harbor’s
entrance, and into the sea. The anxious passenger, the poem’s persona,
hopes for a gentle crossing out of the harbor, one without turbulence
associated with “moaning of the bar.” Instead, he hopes for a tide that is
“Too full for sound and foam” because such a gentle tide would be like
the one “which drew [him] out the boundless deep” and into port.