Crossing The Bar

"I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar." - Alfred, Lord Tennysosn

Ok, so immediately, I noticed that this poem is an example of the use of quatrains.  I didn't have to even read it.  I just looked at the poem itself and saw it was a quatrain because it consisted of  four groups of four lines.  The reason the poem is divided into quatrains is because it creates the outline for the rhyming.  For example, in the first quatrain, "star" and "bar" rhyme and "me" and "sea" rhyme.  This sort of rhyming is consistant throughout all the quatrains of the poem.  The second thing I realized (not quite as immediately this time) was that the poem was about dying and going to heaven.  The quote above is an excellent support for this theory.  At first, one might think that the poem is about going off to sea.  I realized it was not about going out to sea when I saw the word "Pilot."  It is only capitalized because it is being used in replace of the word God.  God is who the speaker wishes to meet once he or she has "crossed the bar," or died.