Be Thou My Vision

Attributed to Saint Dallan / English verses by Eleanor Hull (1912)

    “I cried out to you, O Lord,” says the psalmist, “I said, You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living” (142:5). We are too accustomed to such words.  What is the psalmist saying? 
     Everywhere else in the world, men want things from the gods, but otherwise they’d be far more comfortable if the gods stayed wherever they were.  The old and honest pagan soldier Bardia, in C. S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces, tells the princess that he’s a pious man, that he does his duty by the gods, he gives them the proper sacrifices on the holy days, but that otherwise he figures that if he doesn’t meddle with them, they won’t meddle with him.  If you were a Greek farmer, you might pour a wine-offering into the earth in honor of Ceres, the goddess of the harvest.  That was so you’d get a good yield from your crops.  It was not so that you would get Ceres herself.  Even Odysseus, that man of many dodges, favored as he is by the cunning and dodgy goddess Athena, does not trust her implicitly, and is not particularly comfortable when she is around.
     But the psalmist wants the Lord Himself, above all portions, all inheritances.  If we say, “Ah, but he just wants heaven, and that’s something, all right,” we mistake.  For the psalmist has no clear notion of heaven or of eternal life promised to God’s faithful, if he has any notion of them at all. That makes his plea all the more impressive.  In another psalm, the poet simply cries out, “Cheleki, Adonai!” – “My portion, Lord!” (119:57). That’s translated into a regular English sentence: “Thou art my portion, Lord,” but it’s really an outburst of wonder, and a bold claim.  Other people may get a division of the spoils of battle.  Other people may get this or that patch of land to settle on, after conquest.  Other people may get their share, their cut, of food at a sacred feast.  That’s what a chelek is.  But the poet wants no less and no other than God Himself.
     That is the sense of the ancient Irish poem, Rop tu mo baile, which Mary Elizabeth Byrne translated into English, and Eleanor Hull recast in poetic form, as the beloved hymn “Be Thou My Vision” (1912).  If you want the verses that capture the poet’s longing in its purest form, they might be these – and I am right glad I don’t have to make an audio version of my trying to pronounce them:

Do serc im anmain, do grád im chride,
tabair dam amlaid, a Rí secht nime.

It means, literally, “Thy love in my soul, thy grace in my heart – grant this to me, O King of the seven heavens!”  And, to show that he is not thinking of what use this love will be to him, he says elsewhere that he does not seek men – think of a chieftain calling up a band of warriors no one can resist – and he does not seek maine marba, dead wealth.
     Who wrote the Irish poem?  We don’t know for certain, but it’s been attributed to Saint Dallan, a scholar in the third or fourth generation of Irish Christians following their conversion by Saint Patrick.  Saint Dallan was a poet, and we do know that he composed a poetic eulogy in honor of Saint Columba, who in 597 died in the monastery of Iona, which the Irish monks had established on an island off the coast of Scotland, as a center for evangelizing the pagans.  For what it’s worth, that whole enterprise was in the spirit of this poem – for why would you leave the comforts of home, to live among enemies in such a place?  And yet it would be hard to name an island so small that had so large an influence on the history of man.  Such is the yield, when the battle is the Lord’s, and the reward is the Lord Himself!

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight;
Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight;
Thou my soul’s Shelter, Thou my high Tower:
Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of Heaven, my victory won,
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.