"Crossing the Bar" is an 1889elegiac poem byAlfred, Lord Tennyson. The narrator uses anextended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between the river of life, with its outgoing "flood", and the ocean that lies beyonddeath, the "boundless deep", to which we return.
The background to the poem's composition is not entirely clear. One suggestion is that Tennyson composed it while crossing theSolent fromAldworth toFarringford on theIsle of Wight, after suffering a serious illness; alternatively, that he wrote it on a yacht anchored inSalcombe, where there is amoaning sandbar. "The words", he said, "came in a moment".[1] Shortly before he died, Tennyson told his sonHallam to "put 'Crossing the Bar' at the end of all editions of my poems".[1]
The poem contains fourstanzas that generally alternate between long and short lines. Tennyson employs a traditional ABABrhyme scheme. 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…[He is] that Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us."[1]
The words were set to music in April 1890 as a song[2] for high voice and piano byCharles Villiers Stanford and as an 1893 hymn, "Freshwater", for four-part chorus bySir Hubert Parry. Other settings include those bySir Joseph Barnby,Geoffrey Shaw,Charles Ives,[3]Gwyneth Van Anden Walker andJohn Philip Sousa.
In 1998 the poem was set to music byRani Arbo, with a subsequent choral arrangement by Peter Amidon.[4][5] A slightly rearranged version of the latter was later produced byThe Spooky Men's Chorale and included on their album calledWarm.[6]
A version by the folk band Doggerland to Rani Arbo's music is available on their albumNo Sadness of Farewell, released in 2017, and it has also been covered by the folk band False Lights on their albumSalvor, released in 2015. British folk music groupThe Longest Johns released their own cover of this poem in 2018 in their albumBetween Wind and Water.
A 2024 four-part arrangement byCraig McLeish was written for "Sing to Save Lives", a project celebrating the bicentenary of theRNLI.[7]
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.[8]
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