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.

Newman wrote these lines in 1833 during a crisis on his return journey from the Mediterranean. While traveling from Sicily, he fell seriously ill with fever and, after recovering, was delayed at sea near the Strait of Bonifacio when his ship was becalmed in heavy fog. An Anglican clergyman at the time, he was wrestling with uncertainty about his future and vocation. The poem, later titled “The Pillar of the Cloud,” gives voice to that moment of physical vulnerability and spiritual disorientation, asking for divine guidance step by step rather than a full view of what lies ahead.

The “kindly Light” is a metaphor for God’s providential guidance—gentle (“kindly”) yet authoritative—amid “encircling gloom,” a world of limited sight and anxious uncertainty. The speaker’s request is deliberately modest: not a map of the future but enough illumination for the next faithful action (“one step enough for me”). The poem dramatizes a spiritual discipline of trust, surrendering the desire for control and foresight. Its enduring appeal lies in how it turns fear and disorientation into prayer, presenting faith not as certainty about outcomes but as willingness to proceed under partial light.

1) “Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, / Lead Thou me on!” (common capitalization variant in hymnals)
2) “Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see / The distant scene—one step enough for me.” (punctuation/dash variant)
3) “The night is dark, and I am far from home: / Lead thou me on!” (colon vs semicolon variant)