Personal Reflection on the Passing of Friends

Not to my sorrow only, but that most keenly felt by family and others intimate to their lives, is the loss of two friends in the last two weeks. The poetry of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is a comfort. He pictures death as a "crossing of the bar." The "bar" is a shallow shoal in a bay, and the "moaning" of which he wrote is that sound made by the winds playing across the narrows. He likens it to the moaning of grief, but says "may there no moaning" when he passes. The poet notes that death is not a shallow hazard, but a deep, purposeful draught needing no fear. He speaks of his "Pilot," as one who takes the tiller and provides sure navigation. The poem I offer below, is Tennyson's beautiful work "Crossing the Bar." I hope none now grieve. But when they inevitably do, I hope this brief poem gives them the comfort it now gives me.

Crossing the Bar

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 bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crost the bar.