Lead, Kindly Light

The story of this hymn

John Henry Newman wrote these lines in June 1833, aged thirty-two, becalmed for a week aboard a boat carrying oranges from Palermo to Marseilles, after a fever in Sicily that nearly killed him. Unsure of everything except the next step, he asked only for light enough to take it. The poem became a hymn when John Bacchus Dykes composed the tune 'Lux Benigna' in 1865, and its closing hope — 'those angel faces... loved long since, and lost awhile' — has kept it at funerals ever since.

Where it sits in the service

Sits best in the middle of the service, after the tributes, when its images of darkness and the single next step say what mourners feel; the final promise of reunion also lets it close a service. There are only three verses, so print all of them — the irregular line-lengths mean congregations follow far better with the full text in front of them.

In the programme, list it in the order of service as “Hymn — Lead, Kindly Light” with the leader or choir named beside it.

How it is actually sung

A quieter, more inward hymn than most funeral choices, written by Newman in a becalmed ship, and it suits a small or reflective service better than a large one. Three verses. It is not a hymn a large congregation will belt out, and choosing it for a full church is usually a mistake — it belongs in a chapel.

Printing the words

Public domain. Print all three verses; this is a hymn people follow on the page rather than sing from memory.

This is practical guidance rather than legal advice. Reproduction rights vary by territory, by hymnal edition and by the licence your church holds — the church office is the right place to ask, and they answer this question often.