Sailing Home

"Crossing the Bar" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Employing sailing and night imagery, Tennyson implements a speaker describing an ideal death.   He views the perfect death as a sailing expedition during the night.  During this expedition, there should be no "moaning of the bar" which refers to mourning over his death (Tennyson 886).  The speaker describes his death as the moment he has "crossed the bar" (Tennyson 886).  The bar the speaker refers to, further accentuating the sailing theme in the poem, is a sandbar in the water.  Furthermore, the night setting of the sailing trip points to the speaker's desire for a peaceful, quiet passing in his sleep.  Also, the speaker says that he does not want any "sadness of farewell" when he embarks because he hopes "to see [his] Pilot face to face" once he has completed his journey (Tennyson 886).  Therefore, death should be a joyful event as the speaker begins his journey to see his Pilot.  Pilot's capitalization allows one to infer that the word refers to God.  Therefore, the poem could be read as having a religious facet as well.  From this perspective, the poem incorporates sailing and night imagery to describe an appropriate death as a peaceful, quiet passing back home to meet God.