Our Pilot

"I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar."
("Crossing the Bar" - Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

I was trying to figure out what the word "bar" means in this poem.  Obviously, it metaphorically represents some sort of barrier the speaker must cross after death in order to reach heaven.  However, I thought that the word may have a definition associated with the sea.  Apparently, a type of seabird is called a "sea bar" or "tern." I found this interesting because maybe the word "bar" is used in more than one context.  The speaker literally wants to cross the bar in order to reach heaven; however, the "mourning of the bar" can represent a bird's call as it flies along the beach.  These birds metaphorically represent those who mourn for a person who has died.

In the excerpt above, the word "pilot" is capitalized.  At first, I thought this was just a thing with poets. Emily Dickinson capitalizes all of her nouns, so everyone else should too, right?  Well, upon closer examination, the pilot in this poem is metaphorically referring to God.  In our life, God is the one who choses when we will join his kingdom and what will happen to us.  The speaker is trying to prove to his loved ones that mourning loss after death is pointless because God has carved a pathway for each and every person on Earth.  Describing God as a pilot is appropriate because the speaker is putting "out to sea" in the first stanza and embarking on a journey in the third stanza.  In both scenarios, a pilot is needed in order to guide the way.