<P> "Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson . It is considered that Tennyson wrote it in elegy; the poem has a tone of finality and the narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between river of life, with its outgoing "flood", and the ocean that lies beyond (death), the "boundless deep", to which we return . </P> <P> Tennyson is believed to have written the poem (after suffering a serious illness) while on the sea, crossing the Solent from Aldworth to Farringford on the Isle of Wight . Separately, it has been suggested he may have written it on a yacht anchored in Salcombe . "The words", he said, "came in a moment". Shortly before he died, Tennyson told his son Hallam to "put' Crossing the Bar' at the end of all editions of my poems". </P>

What is the underlying metaphor of crossing the bar
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