You probably know that they sing Abide With Me at every cup FA cup final at Wembley, before the teams appear on the pitch. The band strikes up and the crowd all sing along. But why do they do this? And when did it start?
Let’s follow the story from the beginning. You can read it below. Or, if you prefer, you can listen to it on this video.
HENRY LYTE (1793–1847)
Henry Francis Lyte was born in Kelso, Scotland, in 1793. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, where he won the prize for English poetry three times. He became an Anglican priest in June 1815—the month of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo—and he ministered in towns in Ireland and West England.
In the course of his pastoral duties, in 1820, he visited the deathbed of an older priest, Augustus le Hunte. The dying man spoke of his great regret of not having taken the letters of St Paul ‘in their plain and literal sense’ and impressed on Lyte the need to do so. Later, the dying man, in his last earthly moments, kept repeating the words, ‘Abide with me’. His words made a deep impression on Lyte and led to his evangelical conversion. But he did not write ‘Abide With Me’ at that time. For, although Lyte published three volumes of poetry over the next fifteen years—Tales In Verse Illustrative of the Several Petitions of the Lord’s Prayer (1826), Poems Chiefly Religious (1833), and The Spirit of the Psalms (1834)—no poem resembling ‘Abide With Me’ was among them.
CURATE OF BRIXHAM
In 1823, Lyte became curate of the church of All Saints in the fishing village of Lower Brixham in Devon. He spent the rest of his life there, promoting Christian education in schools and on ships. But he suffered increasingly from respiratory illnesses and, by the summer of 1847, was gravely ill from tuberculosis.
(Photo Credit: Phil-Indn, Wikimedia Commons).
He preached his farewell sermon to his congregation on 4 September before travelling to Nice in the hope of checking the progress of the disease in a warmer climate. He wrote ‘Abide With Me’ in his study that afternoon and gave it to his daughter, together with a melody he had composed. Then he travelled south. But even the salubrious Mediterranean air could not cure him. And he died there two weeks later.
A HAPPY PAIRING: ABIDE WITH ME & EVENTIDE
At first, the words of ‘Abide With Me’ were paired with various hymn tunes. But in 1861 the editorial board of Hymns Ancient and Modern felt that the words needed something better and asked William Henry Monk to write a new melody. Monk was in great sorrow from the recent loss of his young daughter, and he wrote the tune Eventide. It has become the inseparable companion of Lyte’s words ever since.
The new hymn soon proved popular. Charles Ives arranged it in 1890. So did Mahler, in his ninth and final symphony in 1909. So did Vaughan Williams in 1936. And Nurse Edith Cavell sang it on the evening before her execution in Schaerbeek, Brussels, on 10 October 1915.
As for the FA Cup Final, Sir Alfred Wall, the Secretary of the Football Association, introduced ‘Abide With Me’ in 1927 to replace Alexander’s Ragtime Band, which had been the opening tune for the Cup Final until that time. The initiative was fervently supported by King George V and Queen Mary, who both loved the hymn. So nobody was inclined to disagree. Two years later, the Rugby League followed suit at their Challenge Cup Final. ‘Abide With Me’ is still sung at both matches every year, an annual moment of faith for a people who are not always religious.
AN EVERGREEN FAVOURITE
The hymn soon became known worldwide. It was a favourite of Alfred Lord Tennyson and of Mahatma Gandhi. Thelonius Monk recorded it, so did John Coltrane, Doris Day, Paul McCartney, and Elton John, who said it was his favourite hymn and always made him cry. The Titanic band played it in 1912, as the ship and its people sank to the icy depths. Another band played it at the Turkish Airlines crash in Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands in 2009. It was sung at the opening of the London 2012 Olympics. It remains among the most widely-sung of English hymns and is as popular as ever.
Lyte did write other hymns, including Praise, my soul, the king of heaven. But it is Abide With Me, written two weeks before he died, which has proved his most enduring legacy.
Now think of that when you are tempted to give up! You may produce something to bless the world in your very last days on earth. Did you know that Van Gogh created all his great paintings in the last year of his life? Let us not be weary in well-doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not (Gal. 6.9).
ABIDE WITH ME IN THE CAVELL MASS
One recent tribute to the Eventide hymn-tune was as the melody that runs through my Cavell Mass, which was commissioned for the Edith Cavell centenary celebrations in Brussels in 2015.
If you go to the Cavell Mass page, you can hear all of the mass. Here is a taste of the Gloria.
And here is the arrangement of ‘Abide With Me’ that goes with the mass.
Finally here are all the words of “Abide With Me” as written by Lyte. Verses 3, 4, and 5, to be honest, are not much sung.
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.
Not a brief glance I beg, a passing word;
But as Thou dwell’st with Thy disciples, Lord,
Familiar, condescending, patient, free.
Come not to sojourn, but abide with me.
Come not in terrors, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings,
Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea—
Come, Friend of sinners, and thus bide with me.
Thou on my head in early youth didst smile;
And, though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee,
On to the close, O Lord, 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.