Crossing the Bar As the Crowning Glory of Tennyson s Life s Work
Tennyson's Crossing the Bar (1889) was written in his eighty-first year, three years before he died. These lines had come to him in a flash of inspiration during a ferry crossing (from Lymington to Yarnmouth) of the strait Solent.
Tennyson had been very near to death in the past few months and his recovery had seemed miraculous. In this poem, by way of thanksgiving, he solemnly aspires to see his 'Pilot face to face'. Time for him, he believed, was running out.
In this poem, Tennyson gives thanks to God for curing him miraculously of his illness. Indeed, his gratitude is too deeply felt to be expressed adequately in words. The flood tide which originally bore his soul to the shores of Life is now ebbing, returning his soul to the boundless depths of the Eternal from whence it came.
In the third stanza, the poet speaks to his dear ones, asking them not to be sad at the last, to have courage enough to overcome the sadness of personal loss, just as he had done after the death of his close friend Arthur Hallam and his own second son Lionel.
For though in death he will be far away from them, beyond their mortal limits of Time and Place, at least they should seek consolation in the fact that he, in spirit, hoped to see his God face to face.
In Crossing the Bar, Tennyson's inspiration is fired by a divine faith in a personal living God.
His son Hallam Tennyson told him that Crossing the Bar was the crown of his life's work. The poet explained that the Pilot was 'That Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us.' He asked that the poem may always be placed at the end of all the editions of his poems.
The poem has a simple dignity, yet it harmonizes with a subtle variety. The third line of the first three stanzas, longer than the preceding lines swells with feeling, but there is the immediate curbing effect of the stanzas, with a short concluding line, reining and subduing the feeling. The poem is a journey outward which is yet a circling home. Six times the poem speaks of "I" or "me" and yet the poem is nowhere self-absorbed. And it is the single occurrence of the word 'our' (line 13) which vindicates Tennyson's claim to the central claim of a great poet.
The poem consists of four quatrains, alternate lines rhyming abab. The metre is iambic, but the number varies extensively from stanza to stanza.
Here's the poem:
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 through 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.
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Added: August 26, 2008
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