Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Crossing the Bar Essay

Lord Alfred Tennysons fording the Bar is an allegory of shoemakers last, imagined as a journey on an unfathomable sea. The speaker in the meter, who is the author himself, muses on the call that urges him to cross the pub. The whole work is on that pointfore constructed on this principal metaphor, the crossing of the vertebral column barrier and the plunge into the infinite journey on the sea. What is significant in the poem is the way in which Tennyson perceives death. While death is usually comprehend as closure, in Crossing the Bar it is understood as a religious encounter.Death is not only the resolution of earthborn liveness but also the rangening of the afterlife. The imagery of the poem is extremely connotative for the death theme. Notably, the poet does not focus on the end of life and the smart of separation, but only on the experience that expects him after death. The fact that death is pictured as a threshold and afterlife as a vast sea indicates that the auth or embarks on this journey with start regret. The journey is meant to begin at twilight, which again alludes to the end of life and the beginning of a refreshed experience Twilight and evening bell, / And after that the dark (Tennyson 203). The poet also emphasizes that there should be no mourning to accompany him, as he crosses the bar. This liking enhances the poets optimistic view of death. The only sound to be heard, that of the sleeping tide, is also symbolic. First of all, the drowsiness of the sea emphasizes the idea of death. Also, the retractile stool of the waves expresses the idea that the idea that the traveler leave alone not return from his pilgrimage this time. Death will only be the beginning of eternity and the poet will find the divinity on the other side For tho from out our borne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bare me far, I entrust to see my Pilot face to face When I have crost the bar. (Tennyson 203) The hindquarters after death cannot be mapped by eart hly coordinates, such as time and place. Interestingly however, there remains one valid catchment basin which ensures that the poet will never get lost or suffer in solitude the pilot. The pilot is obviously a symbol for the spiritual steering offered by the divinity in both earthly existence and in the afterlife. Thus, Tennysons Crossing the Bar is a metaphorical representation of death, as a voyage into the infinite unknown.The sand bar represents death, while the unmeasured sea is the symbol of everlasting life. The most striking figure of the poem is the pilot, an image of the divinity, who awaits the poet on the other side. The boundless sea lacks any earthly coordinates, while it retains only that of spiritual guidance. Through this poem, Tennyson represents death as a passage into a purely spiritual life, guided by God. ? working Cited Tennyson, Lord Alfred. Selected Poems (New Oxford English Series). New York Oxford University Press, 1963.