This 1889 poem, Crossing the Bar, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson has been quoted on many occasions in life’s passages: graduations, changing vocations, marriage/divorce, and the obviousreference to life’s end.
I just attended my granddaughter’s college graduation at which a musical setting of the poem was sung.
Student Observations on Crossing the Bar
The poem’s sentiment certainly matched the setting for those leaving the familiar shared college experiences to venture out on individual journeys. The two senior speakers spoke of this challenge when “putting out to sea.”
One asked: How do we locate ourselves in the big picture questions confronting society and hold ourselves accountable?
Another: As we pursue our individual paths we underestimate the power of community; yet that is how we are able to emerge with the confidence to go forth.
There was an aspiration in their words best captured in the final stanza of Robert Frost’s poem Two Tramps:
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.