Abide with Me

Lyrics

Abide with me: fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away.
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

I need Thy presence every passing hour.
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power?
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me.

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

History

Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) wrote “Abide with Me” in 1847, near the very end of his life. Lyte had served as vicar of All Saints, Lower Brixham, in Devon, but by 1847 tuberculosis had left him seriously ill. According to accounts drawn from his family, he described the hymn as his “latest effusion” in a letter written in late August 1847, and on 4 September that year he preached what proved to be his final sermon to his congregation, on the subject of Holy Communion. That same evening he gave the completed text to a relative, along with a tune of his own composing. The hymn was printed as a leaflet that September. Lyte left England soon afterwards, seeking a warmer climate for his health, and died at Nice on 20 November 1847. Some later writers have suggested Lyte first drew on the phrase decades earlier, at the deathbed of a friend in Ireland in 1820, though this account is disputed and is not treated here as established fact.

The tune now sung almost everywhere with Lyte's words, EVENTIDE, was not his own. It was composed fourteen years later, in 1861, by the organist and church musician William Henry Monk (1823-1889) for the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Accounts of exactly how Monk wrote it differ: one version, recalled by his widow, has him composing it while watching a sunset during a period of personal grief; another describes him writing it in about ten minutes during a committee meeting, on realising that Lyte's text had no settled tune. Both versions agree that EVENTIDE was written specifically for these words and quickly became inseparable from them.

“Abide with Me” has since become one of the most widely used hymns at funerals and memorial services across the English-speaking world, and is traditionally sung before the FA Cup Final in English football. Lyte's original text ran to eight stanzas; most hymnals, including the version most commonly sung today, print a selection of five.

Performance

This recording of “Abide with Me” is performed by St. Martin's Voices, released on St Peter's YouTube channel in 2024 with a running time of 4 minutes 7 seconds.

Sources: hymnary.org · en.wikipedia.org · hymnologyarchive.com · hymnal.net