Christian Cultural Heritage – Crossing the Bar

1 October 2023 Alfred Tennyson, English Victorian poet laureate  (1809-1892)

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.

 

Twilight and evening bell,

          And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness or farewell,

          When I embark;

 

For tho’ from out our borne of Time and Place

          The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

          when I have crossed the bar.

 

_{Alfred Tennyson wrote a great deal of poetry. The definitive edition of his Poems stretches to three large volumes. ‘Crossing the Bar’ is a meditation on death, written when he was in old age to encourage those facing death. Tennyson later commented: ‘The Pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him.’ As 1Corinthians 13:12: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ At the end of the journey of life, we will see the sovereign Lord responsible for seeing His own through the voyage of life face-to-face in heaven!}