The Full Text of “Crossing the Bar”
1Sunset and evening star,
2 And one clear call for me!
3And may there be no moaning of the bar,
4 When I put out to sea,
5 But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
6 Too full for sound and foam,
7When that which drew from out the boundless deep
8 Turns again home.
9 Twilight and evening bell,
10 And after that the dark!
11And may there be no sadness of farewell,
12 When I embark;
13 For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
14 The flood may bear me far,
15I hope to see my Pilot face to face
16 When I have crost the bar.
The Full Text of “Crossing the Bar”
1Sunset and evening star,
2 And one clear call for me!
3And may there be no moaning of the bar,
4 When I put out to sea,
5 But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
6 Too full for sound and foam,
7When that which drew from out the boundless deep
8 Turns again home.
9 Twilight and evening bell,
10 And after that the dark!
11And may there be no sadness of farewell,
12 When I embark;
13 For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
14 The flood may bear me far,
15I hope to see my Pilot face to face
16 When I have crost the bar.
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“Crossing the Bar” Introduction
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"Crossing the Bar" is a poem by the British Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The poem, written in 1889, is a metaphorical meditation on death, which sees the speaker comparing dying—or a certain way of dying—to gently crossing the sandbar between a coastal area and the wider sea/ocean. In essence, it is a poem that argues that death is in fact a kind of comfort, a point of view based on the speaker's religious faith in the afterlife. Accordingly, the speaker wants to die quietly and gently, without fear, reassured by the knowledge that what comes next is a meeting with God. "Crossing the Bar" was written shortly before Tennyson's own death, and is the poem that Tennyson wanted placed at the end of all future collections and editions of his poetry.
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“Crossing the Bar” Summary
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I notice the sunset and evening star in the sky, and hear a sound calling for me loud and clear. I hope that the sandbar will not be disturbed when I go out to sea.
Instead, I want to be carried out on a tide moving so slowly it seems almost asleep, and which is too swollen to make a sound or create a wash. That's what I want when I return home to the depths of the great unknown.
Twilight comes with the evening bell, which will be followed by darkness. There don't need to be any sad goodbyes when I go.
Even though I'll be going far from this time and place, floating on the tide of death, I hope to meet God, who has been like my pilot in this journey, when I've made it across the bar.
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“Crossing the Bar” Themes
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Death, Acceptance, and Christianity
“Crossing the Bar” is a poem in which a speaker confronts the reality of imminent death—and finds a kind of peace in the thought of dying. Rather than being scared by death, the speaker presents it as a mere transition into another kind of life (specifically, the Christian afterlife). The speaker compares this to the crossing of a sandbar—the kind that marks the shift from a coastal area to a sea or ocean—and asks that there be no “sadness of farewell” on their behalf. The poem is thus inherently an argument in favor of accepting death, with the comforting knowledge of God’s love as solace.
The speaker senses their time on earth is near an end, noting the “sunset” and “evening star,” and even hearing a “clear call” that death is close at hand. This offers an opportunity for them to reflect on death. Building the metaphor of death as the crossing of a bar of sand, the speaker puts forward the idea that death is not something to fear—but just a quiet, near-seamless transition between two different states of being.
The poem opens with a kind of announcement, the speaker hearing the “clear call” that it is time for them to die. As the poem progresses and the speaker reveals their belief in the Christian God, it becomes apparent that the speaker sees this “call” as coming from God himself. Already, this establishes the idea that there is a God behind life and death, and that this coming death is part of God’s plan—that death should not be feared because it is designed by God, who has people’s best interests in mind.
As such, the speaker hopes that there “may be no moaning of the bar” when the speaker “put[s] out to sea.” Why “moan,” goes the speaker's argument, when death is part of God’s plan. In essence, the speaker is saying that they hope there is no fear, sadness, or pain when they die—on the speaker’s part or on the part of others. That’s because, ultimately, the speaker doesn’t see death as a true end.
The speaker prefers to die quietly, because to them that befits the belief that death is merely a transition. To disturb the sandbar, metaphorically speaking, would be to worry about death—to fear and even resist it. To die quietly on a metaphorical tide that is “too full for sound and foam,” seems the most appropriate way to die.
The speaker does, however, acknowledge that dying means going somewhere very far away from the earthly realm: “For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place / The flood may bear me far.” These lines draw a link between the ocean and eternity, putting forward the idea that the speaker is merely returning to the eternal realm from which they came. Indeed, the speaker believes that their life was part of God’s plan—and so too is their death.
In fact, this journey from the earthly to the spiritual realm is even something to look forward to. That’s because it’s only through dying that people can meet their “Pilot”—the Christian God. The speaker hopes to know God through death, to look at God “face to face.” Accordingly, the speaker is in a way quietly but eagerly expecting death—not living in fear of it. Death brings with it a new kind of knowledge and experience that isn’t available to the living. Most importantly, it leads to a reunion with God.
In summary, then, the poem insists that there is no reason to fear death. Instead, it argues that people should take solace in the rather paradoxical thought that death brings with it not an end, but a new beginning.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Crossing the Bar”
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Lines 1-2
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!"Crossing the Bar" opens with a metaphorical image, focusing on "Sunset and [the] evening star" to immediately suggest that something is coming to an end. Specifically, the speaker interprets these images of evening as a signal that the speaker's life is nearly over, as the poem later reveals explicitly.
Though it's not clear what Tennyson's intentions are specifically, the "evening star" is traditionally not a star at all—it is the planet Venus. Compared to other planetary bodies, Venus moves through the skies quite quickly, making it a kind of wandering "star" as well. This suggests the journey of life, the movement from one kind of time to another, eventually coming to rest with death.
Though the poem's main metaphor, which is based on sand and water, has not yet been put forward, the gentle sibilance of the first line (which is here composed of both consonance and alliteration) evokes in advance the kind of slow and quiet waves that the speaker later references:
Sunset and evening star
In line 2, the speaker hears "one clear call." The speaker senses that their time has come, and the idea that this is marked by a "call" foreshadows the role that God will play later in the poem, as if God is beckoning the speaker back to Heaven. As the poem progresses, the idea of a heavenly afterlife will comfort the speaker. The alliteration of "clear call" is intentionally obvious, conveying the clarity of the "call" by making the /c/ sound more prominent. The exclamation mark at the end of the line also signals the metaphorical volume of this call—though the reader doesn't yet know what the call represents.
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Lines 3-4
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea, -
Lines 5-8
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. -
Lines 9-12
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark; -
Lines 13-16
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.
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“Crossing the Bar” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
Alliteration is used sparingly but deliberately throughout “Crossing the Bar.” One of the first instances occurs in the second line, when the speaker describes hearing a “clear call” (a "call" which signals it's the speaker's time to die). The two /c/ sounds in quick succession is intentionally obvious, drawing the reader’s attention to the poem’s use of sound patterning to reinforce its meaning. The /c/ sounds ring loud and clear—just like the “call” the speaker describes hearing.
In the following line, “may” and “moaning” alliterate. Here, the poem is starting to build its case for a quiet acceptance of death. As part of this, the poem describes death as a kind of transition represented metaphorically by crossing the sand bar from a coastal area into a wider body of water, like a sea or an ocean. The speaker wants to pass into death quietly (because it isn't something to fear), and accordingly—within the metaphor they've constructed—they wish for the sand to remain undisturbed as they cross. The two /m/ sounds here are suggestive of careful, quiet, but deliberate movement.
In line 5, the two alliterative /f/ sounds create a sense of fullness, as though the line itself is brimming with that particular sound. This /f/ sound is then developed in the final stanza, increasing the sense of fullness to suggest the increasing nearness of the speaker’s death.
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.In general, the poem's spare and exact use of alliteration allows it to draw attention to important moments and heighten these moments' effects.
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Assonance
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Enjambment
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Extended Metaphor
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Personification
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Polysyndeton
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Sibilance
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"Crossing the Bar" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Moaning
- Bar
- Put out
- Boundless
- Embark
- Tho'
- Bourne
- Pilot
- Crost
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Moaning here means a noise of disturbance, as when someone moans in pain. Here, the speaker's saying the sandbar won't make any noise as they pass over it. The word also plays on the meaning of "complaining"—which the speaker is arguing against when it comes to their own death.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Crossing the Bar”
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Form
"Crossing the Bar" consists of four quatrains with a regular rhyme scheme. The poem additionally follows a form in which the speaker hears a "call" from nature and then meditates on the meaning of that call. This happens twice, first in stanzas 1 and 2, and then in stanzas 3 and 4, giving the poem a somewhat symmetrical structure.
Both the first and thirds stanzas begin with the speaker taking note of their surroundings, and hearing the "call" that signals that their death is near:
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!The rest of the stanzas provide the speaker with an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of this call—in other words, to consider their own death and what it means to die. Lines 3-8 and 11-16 thus contain the speaker's reflections, and show the way that the speaker feels that dying quietly—without "moaning"—is the appropriate way to die. This is because the speaker is comforted by the idea of the afterlife and that God has a plan for them. Indeed, dying presents an opportunity for reunion with God.
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Meter
"Crossing the Bar" is a mostly iambic poem with varying line lengths. The general steadiness of the iambs makes the poem feel assured and, to an extent, somber—as though the poem is an elegy written in advance of the speaker's own death. The assuredness is important because it reflects the fact the speaker isn't afraid of death—rather, they are comforted by the thought of dying because it means they will "see [their] Pilot face to face," meaning God.
The variation of the line length serves an important function too. The longest lines, such as line 3, are iambic pentameter:
And may | there be | no moan|-ing of |the bar
The shortest has just two stresses:
When I | embark
This variation in line length—without sacrificing the steadiness of the meter—gives the poem an undulating, wave-like quality, as though the poem itself is mimicking the quiet pull of the tides that it describes.
Though the poem is reliably iambic throughout, there are a couple of key moments of metrical variation that contribute to the poem's power. In line 8, for example, the line replaces its first iamb with a trochee and its second with a spondee, creating a highly stressed phrase:
Turns a- | gain home.
The sudden placement of the stress at the start of the line represents a metrical turn, which matches the idea of turning towards home that the poem describes. Furthermore, the loading of stresses into such a short line gives the line a kind of grounded sound, perhaps conveying a ship coming to rest on shore.
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Rhyme Scheme
"Crossing the Bar" has a highly regular rhyme scheme, following an ABAB pattern in each of its four stanzas. This regularity gives the poem a calming and assured tone, reflecting the speaker's perspective that death is not something to be feared. The consistency of the rhymes also conveys the inevitability of the tides going in and out. This is an especially useful effect given that the lines vary so much in length—the rhymes help keep the poem stable and mark out the transition from one line to the next.
It's also worth noting that the poem ends on the same rhyme word and rhyme sound with which it begins ("star" and "bar" in stanza 1, and "far" and "bar" in stanza 4). Considering that the poem presents death not as something to fear but as a kind of homecoming and reunion with God, this neat closure marks a similar sense of return in the rhyme scheme to match.
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“Crossing the Bar” Speaker
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The speaker in "Crossing the Bar" is non-specific. While many people assume that the speaker is Tennyson himself, the speaker in the poem has no distinguishing features and could be anyone, man or woman.
The poem is spoken from a first person perspective without the intervention of any other voices. As the poem progresses, it becomes clear that the speaker expects to die soon. In fact, they have heard the "clear call for me!" Throughout the poem, the speaker expresses their attitude and philosophy towards their own impending death. Rather than seeing death as something to fear, the speaker actually looks on death with a quiet eagerness that takes a belief in God as its inspiration. In other words, the thought that there is a design to life and death—that both are part of God's plan—comforts the speaker. Indeed, death to the speaker is actually not an ending but a kind of homecoming in which people are reunited with their "Pilot" (God).
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“Crossing the Bar” Setting
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"Crossing the Bar" is set within the tight-knit imaginative world of its main extended metaphor. The speaker characterizes dying as "Crossing the Bar"—with "bar" referring to a sandbar that divides a coastal area from the wider sea or ocean. Accordingly, the entire poem maintains this water- and shore-based setting. The poem is firmly grounded in time as well as space, with the opening line and line 9 referring to "Sunset" and "Twilight." In other words, night is coming on—and night is also part of the poem's metaphor for death. It is in this metaphorical night that the speaker must set sail (die) and return to the ocean (eternity), where the speaker can meet their "Pilot" (God) once again.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Crossing the Bar”
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Literary Context
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was a British poet during the Victorian era. Tennyson served as the country's Poet Laureate—the official poet of the state—and to this day is still the longest-serving holder of the post. Indeed, he was one of the most popular poets of his day, and continues to be popular in modern times. His upbringing, however, was rather difficult. His father was an alcoholic, and his siblings also struggled with addiction problems and mental health issues. Other significant poets of the era include Matthew Arnold, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, and Thomas Hardy.
Death is not an uncommon subject in Tennyson's poetry—In Memoriam (completed in 1849), perhaps Tennyson's most famous work, was written to mark the passing of his friend and fellow poet Arthur Henry Hallam. "Crossing the Bar" is widely understood to be Tennyson's reflections on his own death, and was written close to the end of his life when he was battling with ill health. Evidently, he felt the poem to be a kind of final statement, instructing that the poem should end all future collections of his works.
The poem makes for an interesting comparison with another famous poem of the era, Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach." Both are set in coastal environments, and both consider endings of sorts. But whereas Arnold's poem expresses doubt and anxiety about the loss of religion—particularly in view of the scientific advances of the day—Tennyson's poem finds sure-footed comfort in the belief that there is a Christian afterlife.
Historical Context
Tennyson is a poet firmly rooted in the Victorian era, a term that describes the rule of Queen Victoria over Britain and its Empire from 1837 to 1901. It was a time of seismic change, particularly inspired by advances in scientific understanding. It was during this time that Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species (1859), which cast doubt on the religious certainties of previous eras. Charles Lyell, a prominent geologist, made major contributions to society's understanding of time and humanity's relationship to the lifespan of the Earth (similarly undermining the literal narratives of the Bible). That said, it was still a deeply religious time. Church-going was an activity woven into the fabric of day-to-day life, and the notoriously strict Victorian sense of morality was deeply embedded in religious tradition.
The Victorian era also saw significant advances in technology, which in part helped facilitate Britain's extended reach around the world through colonization. Trains became a prominent mode of travel, and increasing industrialization contributed to higher population density in cities like London and Manchester. As the Poet Laureate of the time, Tennyson is generally thought of as the quintessential poet of the era, his highly formal writing representing the strictures and organization of the Victorian period.
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More “Crossing the Bar” Resources
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External Resources
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A Reading of the Poem — "Crossing the Bar" read by British actor Jasper Britton.
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A Musical Setting — A choral performance of the poem in England's Ely Cathedral.
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Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold — A poem by a contemporary of Tennyson's, Matthew Arnold. Also based in a coastal setting, it makes for an interesting comparison.
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Further Poems and Bio — More poems by Tennyson, and an in-depth biographical discussion.
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A Radio Documentary — A BBC documentary that focuses on Tennyson's most famous poem, "In Memoriam."
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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