Annie Smith
Search results
Crossing the Bar. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 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.
- Audio Poem of The Day
Audio recordings of classic and contemporary poems read by...
- The Higher Pantheism
The Higher Pantheism - Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord...
- The Eagle
The Eagle - Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson |...
- Break, Break, Break
Break, Break, Break - Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord...
- Audio Poem of The Day
- Summary
- Themes
- Structure
- Poetic Techniques
- Form and Mood
- Analysis of Crossing The Bar
- About Alfred, Lord Tennyson
‘Crossing the Bar‘ is about the journey into death from life and was written by Tennyson in his advancing years when he was starting to think about death (No surprises there!) The poem begins with the poet taking note of the setting sun and Venus. It feels to him in these moments as though he’s been called on. He also considers the sea and what wil...
Within ‘Crossing the Bar’ Tennyson explores several important themes. These include death, time, and the sea. The first is the most important and is prominently discussed and alluded to throughout the poem. From the first line to the last the speaker is preparing for a journey into the afterlife. Each element of the landscape has something to say a...
‘Crossing the Bar’ is a four-stanza poem that’s divided into sets of four lines, known as quatrains. These quatrains follow a consistent rhyme scheme of ABAB. The lengths of the lines vary, but the first and third tend to be a bit longer than the second and fourth. In addition to influencing the rhythmof the poem, this gives the text an increased v...
Tennyson makes use of several poetic techniques in ‘Crossing the Bar’. These include alliteration, enjambment, and metaphor. The latter is the most important literary device used in the poem. A metaphor is a comparison between two, unlike things that do not use “like” or “as” is also present in the text. When using this technique a poet is saying t...
‘Crossing the Bar’ is written in free verse in four stanzas which each contain four lines. It contains a strict ABAB rhyming pattern. Despite the gloomy subject matter, the mood is never dull or gloomy in its tone, perhaps the rhyming pattern was put in place in order to avoid this. It seems to view death almost as an adventure. The poem is presuma...
Stanza One
The very first line of this stanza of ‘Crossing the Bar’puts the poem in a particular time of day. The evening star that it describes is another name for Venus, Venus is known as both the Evening Star and the Morning Star dependent on whether it is winter or summer which means this poem is based in the winter. Whilst Venus represents the goddess of love this is certainly no love poem and its inclusion is clearly just to point to what the “time” is. I’m not sure what the narrator is referencin...
Stanza Two
This stanza of ‘Crossing the Bar’ is quaint sounding. It describes the current as very minimal, not very powerful, and does so beautifully. Does this line denote that the narrator’s journey to the afterlife is a peaceful one? Dying in their sleep perhaps? The idea of the full tide suggests that the metaphoricalship being sailed is in deep water. The lack of sound and foam indicates that the vessel is in the deep sea. This might lead one to think that it isn’t at the start of the journey but n...
Stanza Three
Events are once again taking place at twilight. This helps to create a visual picture of the surroundings. The use of the evening bell evokes images of the funeral toll often associated with death. The next line would certainly lend credence to that idea as following the bell there is darkness. Is this a sign that the narrator has finally passed on? One thing is clear and that is that the narrator doesn’t want people to make a big deal out of their passing as they reiterate the sentiment from...
Alfred Lord Tennyson is one of the most famous poets to have lived. He died in 1892 at the ripe old age of 83. For much of Queen Victoria’s reign, he acted as Britain’s poet laureate. A lot of his more famed works were based on mythology, such as Ulysses. His poems are often rich with imagery which shows the influence of the romantics on his poetry...
- Male
- Poetry Analyst And Editor
"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.
Nov 27, 2022 · Crossing the Bar, an elegy written by the British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is a poem focusing on the transience of life and the finality of death. Lord Tennyson was a poet of the Victorian period and remained the poet laureate of Great Britain and Ireland during his lifetime.
Tennyson wrote “Crossing the Bar” in 1889, three years before he died. The poem describes his placid and accepting attitude toward death. Although he followed this work with subsequent poems, he requested that “Crossing the Bar” appear as the final poem in all collections of his work.
1892. 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.
People also ask
What does crossing the bar mean?
Who wrote the poem Crossing the bar?
How does crossing the bar narrator present the journey from life to death?
What time of day is crossing the bar based on?
Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is considered that Tennyson wrote it in elegy; the narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between the river of life, with its outgoing "flood", and the ocean that lies beyond death, the "boundless deep", to which we return.
