Leaving this world

This week: Crossing the Bar by Alfred Lord Tennyson

HOW do we prepare for death? How do we ‘get our affairs in order’, as they used say? Or how do we cope with or surrender to the breaking down of our bodies and minds as our once bright flames begin to flicker and dim?

Whether it be a disease of the brain that blunts our memories and understanding, or the decay of muscle, bone and organ that gradually renders us immobile or incapable, so very few of us will ever be afforded the opportunity or discipline to accept and cope, as our autumns draw toward winter. Being the prime witness to the final furlong of one’s own journey cannot ever be easy.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, (1809–1892) one of the most quoted servants to the English language, and one of it’s best loved poets, was Poet Laureate for Great Britain and Ireland during the reign of Queen Victoria.

How cruel it must have been for he, a writer, to sink into almost total blindness during his final years. How devastating must it have been to hold the pen and yet not see the page?

But somehow, thankfully, he did afford himself the opportunity to capture and record his courageous acceptance and power of faith at this most difficult period of his fading life.

‘Crossing the Bar’ bravely unfolds as the perfect metaphor for the finality of one’s slide from life into death, so much so that it is little wonder, and so fitting, that he left strict instruction that for all future publications and editions of his poetry, that this very poem was to appear at the back end of each, like an epitaph or elegy to his own, final page.

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 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.

Tennyson did not want any sadness or lament. He understood that his final passage on this boat was from the deep, back to the deep. From the darkness, back into the darkness, ashes to ashes, as it were. His first three stanzas underline the reality of his inevitable journey from this place, to another. But I love his use of three capitals in the final fourth stanza, ‘Time and Place’ and ‘my Pilot’.

Our time is our brief, short blink of light that we are or were, our place is that spot where there we shone, and our pilot is whatever we believe to be the almighty. Here was a man who had the strength to come to terms.

(For my own late father, for his love of boats, for his fondness of Tennyson, and for his own courage and dignity when facing his own end.)

John J Kelly is a multiple award-winning poet from Enniscorthy. He is the co-founder of the Anthony Cronin Poetry Award with the Wexford Literary Festival and co-ordinator of poetry workshops for schools locally. Each week, John’s column will deal mainly with novels, plays and poems from both the Leaving Certificate syllabus and Junior Certificate syllabus. kellyjj02@gmail.com