Analyze the following poem as to its theme, poetic form, and rhetorical devices, and develop it into an essay of 200 words. (for literature candidates only)
Crossing the Bar
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
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though 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.
Tennyson wrote Crossing the Bar in 1889, three years before he died. The poem described his fearlessness toward death and his firm belief in God and the eternity of afterlife.
This poem consists of four quatrain stanzas rhyming “abab”. The first and the third lines of each stanza are always longer than the second the fourth lines, although the line lengths vary among the stanzas.
Tennyson employs lots of images in the poems. The sunset, evening star and twilight are images of the end of life, sea, tide and flood are symbols of life. 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 other important image in the poem is one of “crossing,” suggesting Christian connotations: “crossing” refers both to “crossing over” into the next world, and to the act of “crossing” oneself in the classic Catholic gesture of religious faith and devotion.