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, Lord, 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.
About the writer: Henry Francis Lyte, a clergyman in the Church of England, was born in Kelso, Scotland in 1793. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin where he graduated in 1814. During his college career he won the prize for the best English poem on three occasions. In 1818 he experienced a great spiritual change that influenced the rest of his life. He came to know a fellow minister who was sick but who died happy, trusting alone in the atonement and power of his Savior. Lyte wrote concerning himself: “I was greatly affected by the whole matter and brought to look at life and its issue with a different eye than before, and I began to study my Bible and preach in another manner than I had previously done.” The last hymn he wrote, “Abide with me,” is his best known.
Key Verses: By this time they were nearing Emmaus and the end of their journey. Jesus would have gone on, but they begged him to stay the night with them, since it was getting late. So he went home with them. –Luke 24:28, 29