Sunday 13th July 2025 Sea Sunday

Crossing The Bar  Sir H Parry   Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Anthem was the famous poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, put to music by C H H Parry.

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 tho' 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.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was a British poet, and for much of Queen Victoria's reign was Poet Laureate.

Crossing the Bar was written in 1889. There are two competing stories as to its birth. One is that it is written whilst crossing the Solent from his home Aldworth in Blackdown to another home, Farringford in Freshwater Bay on the Isle of Wight , the bar in question being a sand bar in the Solent. The other is that Tennyson was berthed on a yacht, anchored in Salcombe where there is a moaning sandbank. Tennyson said that the words came in a moment. Shortly before his death , he asked this poem be put at the end of all the editions of his poetry. It is an extended metaphor comparing death to crossing the bar and the Pilot is God.  Sir Hubert Parry set this poem to music for a four part chorus in 1893.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, from Wikipedia

C H H Parry was born in Bournemouth in 1848 into a rich family and was educated at Eton where he also gained his music degree.  He went to study further at Oxford.  His music influenced other great English composers such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams.  He wrote his best music in his later years and this include his Songs of Farewell.  He died in Rustington in 1918, just before the end of the Great War.

Sir Parry from Wikipedia