Henry Francis Lyte wrote Abide with Me in 1847, and it became the hymn sung at royal events, in hospitals, and in prisons. Lyte was an English clergyman whose entire ministry was marked by loss: he saw the Reformation destroy the monastic traditions he loved, and his own faith was a constant wrestling match with doubt.
Abide with Me was likely written in the last year of his life, and it carries the weight of approaching death. Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day. Lyte does not hide from mortality. What he asks is not for more time but for presence: O Thou whose all-pervading eye, naught hidden can escape from Thee. Not denial of death, but the companionship of a God who sees him fully and loves him still.
The hymn's power lies in its directness about human condition and its refusal to look away from God in the face of it. The song is not denial. It is honesty about the human plight, paired with the petition that the one source of real comfort would remain.