Lyrics
I love to steal awhile away
From every cumbering care,
And spend the hours of setting day
In humble, grateful prayer.
I love in solitude to shed
The penitential tear,
And all His promises to plead,
Where none but God can hear.
I love to think on mercies past,
And future good implore,
And all my cares and sorrows cast
On Him whom I adore.
I love by faith to take a view
Of brighter scenes in heaven;
The prospect doth my strength renew,
While here by tempests driven.
Thus when life's toilsome day is o'er,
May its departing ray
Be calm as this impressive hour,
And lead to endless day.
Public domain hymn text (1818). Words by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Phoebe Hinsdale Brown, a poor widow raising several children largely on her own in Ellington, Connecticut, wrote 'I Love to Steal Awhile Away' in 1818 after being confronted by a wealthier neighbor who objected to her walking through their garden each evening.
Brown had taken to walking to a quiet, elevated spot near that neighbor's property simply to pray alone at the end of long, difficult days, and when the neighbor's wife accused her of trespassing for some improper purpose, Brown was reportedly too embarrassed to explain that she had only gone there to pray.
Rather than confronting the accusation directly, Brown wrote this hymn as her actual answer, describing in plain, unadorned language exactly what she had been doing in that garden at dusk, effectively defending her habit of solitary prayer through verse rather than argument.
The hymn's opening image, stealing 'awhile away from every cumbering care,' captures something distinct: not a formal, scheduled devotional practice, but a brief, snatched escape from an already full and difficult daily life, fitting Brown's own circumstances as a struggling widow with little time to spare.
Its second verse names a specific, private grief, 'the penitential tear' shed where 'none but God can hear,' suggesting a real personal burden the hymn does not fully explain, consistent with Brown's own documented hardship during this period of her life. Its later verses turn from that private grief toward hope, picturing 'brighter scenes in heaven' and closing with a quiet prayer that life's end might be as calm as the evening hour that inspired the hymn.
The hymn eventually became widely known and included in numerous hymnals throughout the nineteenth century, its plain, personal honesty about needing solitude and prayer resonating well beyond the specific, small conflict that had originally prompted her to write it.
Brown went on to have several children who became notable in their own right, including Samuel Robbins Brown, a pioneering American missionary to Japan and China, though she herself remained primarily known through this single, enduringly simple hymn about the quiet necessity of stolen, private prayer.
