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Lead, Kindly Light

1 min

Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom

Lead Thou me on!

The night is dark, and I am far from home—

Lead Thou me on!

Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

The distant scene—one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that Thou

Shouldst lead me on.

I loved to choose and see my path, but now

Lead Thou me on!

I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,

Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.

So long Thy power hath blest me, sure it still

Will lead me on,

O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till

The night is gone;

And with the morn those angel faces smile

Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

About this prayer

Newman's "The Pillar of the Cloud": a prayer for guidance one step at a time, written at sea in 1833.

History

John Henry Newman wrote these verses on 16 June 1833, becalmed in an orange boat in the Strait of Bonifacio on his way home from Sicily, where he had nearly died of fever. He was still an Anglican; the Oxford Movement began weeks after his return. He titled the poem "The Pillar of the Cloud", after the cloud that led Israel through the desert, and it was sung as a hymn across the English-speaking world.

John Henry Newman, *Verses on Various Occasions*, new edition (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1889), no. XC "The Pillar of the Cloud", pp. 156–157 ([archive.org scan](https://archive.org/details/versesonvariouso00newmuoft)); collated with the [Newman Reader](https://www.newmanreader.org/works/verses/verse90.html) text of the same pages.

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