"Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 elegiac 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 ...

. 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 close to the surface or ...

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

death Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...

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

Overview

The background to the poem's composition is not entirely clear. One suggestion is that Tennyson composed it while crossing the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and mainland Great Britain; the major historic ports of Southampton and Portsmouth lie inland of its shores. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit whi ...

from Aldworth to Farringford on the

Isle of Wight The Isle of Wight (Help:IPA/English, /waɪt/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''WYTE'') is an island off the south coast of England which, together with its surrounding uninhabited islets and Skerry, skerries, is also a ceremonial county. T ...

, after suffering a serious illness; alternatively, that he wrote it on a yacht anchored in

Salcombe Salcombe is a 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 of Outstand ...

, 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 Hallam may refer to: Places * Hallam, Victoria, Australia ** Hallam railway station UK * Hallamshire, an area in South Yorkshire, England, UK ** Royal Hallamshire Hospital ** Sheffield Hallam (UK Parliament constituency) ** Sheffield Hallam Univer ...

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'', ; ) 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 either. ...

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 rh ...

. 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 into 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 isthat Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us."

Musical arrangements

The words were set to music in April 1890 as a song for high voice and piano by Charles Villiers Stanford and as an 1893 hymn, "Freshwater", for four-part chorus by Sir Hubert Parry. 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, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...

, Gwyneth Van Anden Walker and

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

. In 1998 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 and included on their album called ''Warm''. A version by the folk band Doggerland to Rani Arbo's music is available on their album ''No Sadness of Farewell'', released in 2017, and it has also been covered by the folk band False Lights on their album ''Salvor'', released in 2015. British folk music group The Longest Johns released their own cover of this poem in 2018 in their album ''Between Wind and Water.'' A 2024 four-part arrangement by Craig McLeish was written for "Sing to Save Lives", a project celebrating the bicentenary of the

RNLI The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest of the lifeboat services operating around the coasts of the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways. Founded in 1824 ...

Text

Notes

External links

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