Crossing the Bar

As a small group we decided that this poem was a pretty easy one to interpret. My notes, before the small group discussion changed very little. I mentioned that "put out to sea" and "when I embark" symbolized death and the pilot symbolized God. The whole poem basically says that the speaker is nearing death. In my notes i also said that line two "One clear call for me!" Basically meant that the speaker is ready to die; they know it's their time. In our group we noticed a contradiction to this. Line 10 says "And after that the dark!". We felt like this was a contradiction because this person is supposed to be happy and peaceful "sailing off to heaven" and then out of nowhere they mention the dark. We decided the tone was sort of "accepting" in the sense that the speaker is accepting of the fact that it is their time to die. This idea can also be supported in the fact that the speaker wants their to be "no sadness of farewell" when he dies. Grace mentioned that this mirrors the idea in the song "when I'm Gone" by Eminem. I feel compelled to add a few lyrics from the song: " And when I'm gone, just carry on, don't mourn Rejoice every time you hear the sound of my voice"