Crossing the Bar
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,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out
the boundless deep
Turns again home.
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of
farewell,
When I embark;
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to
face
When I have crossed the bar.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
c. 1889
NB - Tennyson uses the metaphor of a sand bar to describe the barrier between life and death.
A sandbar is a ridge of sand built up by currents along a shore.
In order to reach the shore, the waves must crash against the sandbar, creating a sound that Tennyson describes as the "moaning of the bar." The bar is one of several images of liminality in Tennyson's poetry:
in "Ulysses," the hero desires "to sail beyond the sunset";
in "Tithonus", the main character finds himself at the "quiet limit of the world," and regrets that he has asked to "pass beyond the goal of ordinance."
Sand bar
Spanish Banks, Vancouver, Canada
Spanish Banks, Vancouver, Canada