Читать книгу Best Loved Hymns and Readings - Martin Manser - Страница 30

This consolatory poem is often recited at funerals to assuage the grief of mourners. The allusion in the title is to a vessel passing over an offshore ridge of sand, mud or shingle marking the entrance to a harbour or river, used here as an allegory for the departure of the soul at death.

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 (1809-92)