Crossing the Bar

This poem represents life and death. The pilot symbolizes God. I think that the poem is told from the perspective of a boat. The boat is an extended metaphor for a person. The speaker is accepting toward death because he knows that we will all eventually die. The "boundless deep" represents death, the bottom of the ocean. When the speaker says "turns again home," it symbolizes heaven. The speaker desires a peaceful death rather than a harsh and painful death.