"Crossing the Bar": Imagery

       In Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, this very short in length work of literature carries an abundant amount of imagery.  To begin, the author describes a man happily awaiting for death to take him "from out our bourne of Time and Place" (Tennyson).  The journey to this unlimited afterlife evokes the reader's senses by characterizing this journey as so extreme that the a full tide is without side.  Imagery in this poem changes the reader's usual perseption of death.  Death is often thought of as dark and cruel.  However, this piece uses images such as a "sunset and evening star" to potray death as a peaceful aspect of life (Tennyson).  The usage imagery also implies that the speaker shows no fear of death, but welcomes it.  In this poem, death not does necessarily serve take the man's life.  Here, death's purpose is to take this man from the limited world to boundless unknown.