Crossing the Bar
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar." In this part of the poem the Pilot is another name for God. This is why the 'p' in Pilot is capitalized. According to the speaker, there is only one Pilot and normally when people talk about there being one God, they capitalize the 'g'. This capitalization is a clue that the Pilot is God.

Because the Pilot is God, I immediately thought that the bar was heaven. However, after reading the last two lines again I discovered that the bar was death. The speaker hopes that he will meet God when he dies. This is the reason he gives that his loved one should not worry about him. Dying is something the speaker looks forward to because he wants to meet God.