The story behind the hymn
Henry Francis Lyte spent twenty-four years as pastor of the fishing village of Lower Brixham, Devon, most of them in failing health. In September 1847, tubercular and ordered abroad for the winter, he preached one last time to his people, celebrated communion, and that evening walked in his garden as the sun set over Torbay. He came inside and handed his family the manuscript of Abide with Me.
The hymn takes its cue from the Emmaus road: two disciples pressing a stranger — abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Lyte turns their supper invitation into the soul's plea against every dusk: fast falls the eventide; the darkness deepens; change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me.
He left for Nice and died there weeks later, pointing upward, his last recorded words peace, joy. The hymn's final stanza — hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes... in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me — has accompanied more deathbeds than perhaps any other verse in English, and, by strange grace, is also sung by a hundred thousand voices before every FA Cup final: heaven in earth's most crowded places.
The 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 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.
Public domain. Free to sing, copy, print, and share.
The Scripture behind it
But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them.
Abide with us: for it is toward evening — the Emmaus plea the hymn universalises.
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Where is death's sting? Stanza three sings Paul's taunt verbatim.