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 deepTurns again home.Twilight and evening bell,And after that the dark!And may there be no sadness of farewell,When I embark;For tho' from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crost the bar.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · Crossing the Bar
Comfort & remembrance
“Sunset and evening star,”
- Author
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Work
- Crossing the Bar
- Found in
- Demeter and Other Poems
- Year
- 1889
- Length
- 102 words
- Source
- Internet Archive scan of the first edition (Macmillan, 1889), pp. 174–175
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Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Alfred, Lord Tennyson died in 1892, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1889. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the scanned printed edition linked here.
About this text. Text of the first edition (1889), where the last line reads ‘crost’; many later books print ‘cross’d’ or ‘crossed’, and hymn versions repeat words. Tennyson asked for it to be placed at the end of every edition of his poems. The Pilot is God, as Tennyson told his son, so it suits a religious or spiritual service better than a humanist one.
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I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.
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