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 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.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar," conveys the speaker’s calm and accepting philosophy toward death. The theme of "crossing" crops up a few times and refers to crossing into the afterlife. The bar he crosses represents not only the physical sandbar in the sea, but also the death he will eventually encounter.
The poem contains four rhyming quatrain stanzas, all of which have the rhyme scheme ABAB. The second two stanzas echo the pattern of the first two. The first lines of the first and third stanzas provide a setting for the rest of the poem. The exclamation points after the second lines of the first and third stanzas evoke a sense of surprise. In the first, the speaker is surprised by the call which invites his death. In the third, he expresses his apprehension that he is entering the unknown; after he dies, there will only be the dark. The varying lengths of the lines seem to represent the incoming and outgoing tides, which are uneven. They also mimic the way that nature is not perfect; the rhythm of nature is imperfect.
The speaker hears "one clear call" for himself, inviting him into death. He is not anxious, but rather accepts it. He hopes that there will be "no moaning of the bar / When [he] put[s] out to sea." In saying so, he means to convey that he hopes for a peaceful death without any complications. He hopes for a tide "too full for sound" and that "seems asleep" so that his going is uneventful. He does not want his death to affect the lives of anyone else, rather he hopes that life continues just as before, as he hopes the tide "from out the boundless deep / Turns again home." He does not want anyone to mourn his crossing, as he wants "no sadness of farewell / When [he] embarks[s]." One reason for his easy acceptance of death is that even though he will be leaving “our bourne of Time and Place”and entering the unknown, he will see his “Pilot,” namely God, when he arrives.
