"Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 poem by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

. 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 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 to Farringford on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight ( ) is a county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the largest and second-most populous island of England. Referred to as 'The Island' by residents, the Is ...

. 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 ...

, 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

stanza In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'' , "room") is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have ei ...

s 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 ); plura ...

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 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 in Bournemouth, Parry's first major works appeared in 1880. As a composer he is be ...

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

Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed ...

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, 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 (Australia), Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, but some are from Western Australia. Their repertoire consists largely of songs either writte ...

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 Goofy is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. He is a tall, Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic dog who typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled f ...

cartoon ''

The Olympic Champ ''The Olympic Champ'' is a 1942 Goofy cartoon made by Walt Disney Animation Studios which explains the events in track and field at the Olympic Games. Summary It starts off with Goofy doing the Olympic torch relay to the cauldron and then explai ...

''; 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 M ...

, 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 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