Overview
Tennyson is believed to have written the poem (after suffering a serious illness) while on the sea, crossing the Solent from Aldworth to Farringford on the Isle of Wight. Separately, it has been suggested he may have written it on a yacht anchored in Salcombe, where there is a moaning sandbar. "The words", he said, "came in a moment". [1] Shortly before he died, Tennyson told his son Hallam to "put 'Crossing the Bar' at the end of all editions of my poems". [1]
The poem contains four stanzas that generally alternate between long and short lines. Tennyson employs a traditional ABAB rhyme scheme. Scholars have noted that the form of the poem follows the content: the wavelike quality of the long-then-short lines parallels the narrative thread of the poem.
The extended metaphor of "crossing the bar" represents travelling serenely and securely from life through death. The Pilot is a metaphor for God, whom the speaker hopes to meet face to face. Tennyson explained, "The Pilot has been on board all the while, but in the dark I have not seen him…[He is] that Divine and Unseen Who is always guiding us." [1]
Set to music
The words were set to music in April 1890 as a song [2] for high voice and piano by Charles Villiers Stanford and as a hymn, "Freshwater", for four-part chorus by Sir Hubert Parry (publ. 1893). Other settings include those by Sir Joseph Barnby, Geoffrey Shaw, Charles Ives, [3] Gwyneth Van Anden Walker and John Philip Sousa.
In 2012 the poem was set to music by Rani Arbo, with a subsequent choral arrangement by Peter Amidon. [4] A slightly rearranged version of the latter was later produced by The Spooky Men's Chorale and included on their album called Warm. [5]
A version by the folk band Doggerland to Rani Arbo's music is available on their album No Sadness of Farewell, released in 2017, and it has also been covered by the folk band False Lights on their album Salvor, released in 2015. British folk music group The Longest Johns released their own cover of this poem in 2018 in their album Between Wind and Water.
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