Crossing the Bar

There is a regal kind of elegance to “Crossing the Bar,” that is appropriate given the subject matter. The form draws on the traditional construct of an elegy, dating back to the Greeks, appropriate as Tennyson is writing his own elegy fit, like all elegies, for recitation at a funeral, in this case his own.

Thus, Tennyson conforms to the formal expectations of the elegy that date back to ancient Greece where verses were recited as part of the burial rituals. Tennyson’s elegy maintains the expectations of four-line stanzas, or quatrains, that each maintain a tight and anticipated rhyme scheme, ABAB CDCD EFEF GAGA. Harking back to the elegy tradition, Tennyson sustains the rhyming pattern because traditionally rhyming schemes aided in memorization for recitation.

Of course, there is an anomaly in that formal pattern. The rhyme scheme, although traditional, does close with a telling irregularity. In the closing stanza the rhyming scheme returns to the rhyming pattern of the first stanza. The words “far” and “bar” echo “star” and “bar” from the opening stanza. In this, Tennyson uses the form to thematically suggest how death as the end of life nevertheless returns us to the mysterious possibilities of beginnings.