Crossing the bar:

1. Entire poem is a spiritual discourse on the subject of death. It uses

metaphors of sea voyage.
2. Sunset and evening star,/And one clear call for me!”- He could hear the
call of death; he is in the sunset of his life- ready to die. Some inner voice
telling him to get ready for the next world.
3. Poet hopes that the sea doesn’t mourn his departure. Moaning of the bar is
allegorical of roughness of the sea...making the poet a bit hesitant of his
journey of crossing the bar. So he wishes the sea to be calm and asleep so
that his mind is free from the troubled feeling. Sea is allegorical of world
beyond death. The sand bar is the barrier between life and death.
4. He announces the close of the day and how evening will be followed by
darkness. The lengths of the lines alternate between 10, six and four
syllables with no fixed rotation. The differing lengths of lines evoke the
movement of a tide washing upon a beach, something which we all
recognise to be cyclic.
5. He doesn’t want anyone to mourn or be sad of his going. He wishes or
hopes to meet his Pilot –allegorical to meeting God when he has crossed
the sand bar.
6. The repetition of when makes it clear to the reader that the event the poet
is discussing is firmly placed in the future; it will happen, but hasn't
happened yet. Tennyson makes a clear distinction between events which
he knows will happen, and events which he hopes will happen. He cannot
assure that there will be 'no sadness of farewell', so he cannot solidify the
matter within the poem itself.