It was great to have Matt join in with an offering for poetry Friday. Poetry seems to bring out the urge to blog. Greg blogs the most when poetry is posted. So not to disappoint him, here is my selection for Friday, August 18. I offer what would have been the number one poem read at funerals during the late Victorian Age and through the first half of the 20th c. The poem Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), speaks of the final passage to that land from which no one returns. I don’t know why, but this poem and the 23rd Psalm were staples at funerals. I present it today in light of the passing of our near neighbor 4th Ave. Baptist Church, whose heyday paralleled the popularity of this poem.

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 bourn 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.

Posted in Poetry Friday |