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Crossing the Bar

16 lines · about a minute to read aloud

ReligiousTraditionalA classicComfortingGentleOutdoorsyA long lifePeace at lastFor a grandfatherFor a father

Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1889

Free to use in the UK and the US

Crossing the Bar

Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1889

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.

Demeter and Other Poems, Alfred Tennyson, 1889, printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. Transcribed from the Wikisource page-scan transclusion of 'Demeter and other poems (IA demeterotherpoem00tennrich).pdf', pages 188 to 189, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Demeter_and_other_poems/Crossing_the_Bar. The 1889 spellings 'tho'' and 'crost' are the edition's and are kept.

Public domain in the UK and the US · serany.app

What Serany thinks about this poem

ReligiousTraditionalA classicComfortingGentleOutdoorsyA long lifePeace at lastFor a grandfatherFor a father

Background

Tennyson wrote it in 1889, at eighty, crossing the Solent to the Isle of Wight after an illness. He told his son it came to him in a few minutes. He also instructed that it be placed at the end of every collection of his poems, which is where it still sits, so it was meant from the start to be read as a last word.

Meaning

Dying is a boat leaving harbour. The bar is the ridge of sand at a harbour mouth where the water goes rough, and he asks that there be no moaning of the bar, meaning he wants to go quietly and he does not want a fuss made. The Pilot in the last line is God. He is not frightened and he expects to arrive somewhere.

Who's it for

Read this for someone who had a long life and knew it was ending: an old age reached, affairs settled, goodbyes said. It suits a family who want something dignified and familiar rather than raw, and it suits a person who went to sea or loved being near it. It is quietly Christian, so it fits a service with hymns in it better than one without. It does not fit a young death or a sudden one, because its calm comes from the death arriving on time.

If this one is not right

Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Death stands above me, whispering low I know not what into my ear: Of his strange language all I know Is, there is not a word of fear.

Death stands above me

Walter Savage Landor · 4 lines

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art; I warmed both hands before the fire of Life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

I strove with none

Walter Savage Landor · 4 lines

Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember

Christina Rossetti · 14 lines

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

Invictus

William Ernest Henley · 16 lines

She Is Gone

David Harkins

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