The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended

Lyrics

The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
The darkness falls at Thy behest;
To Thee our morning hymns ascended,
Thy praise shall hallow now our rest.

We thank Thee that Thy Church, unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.

As o'er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.

So be it, Lord; Thy throne shall never,
Like earth's proud empires, pass away;
Thy kingdom stands, and grows forever,
Till all Thy creatures own Thy sway.

History

John Ellerton (1826-1893), a Church of England clergyman, was one of the most prolific English hymn-writers of the Victorian era. He wrote "The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended" in 1870 for inclusion in A Liturgy for Missionary Meetings, and it quickly became one of the great English-language evening hymns. Its central image is the passage of daylight around the globe: as one part of the world moves into darkness, another moves into dawn, so that, in Ellerton's words, "the voice of prayer is never silent" anywhere on earth. This picture of the Church's unbroken, worldwide watch of prayer and praise gave the hymn a natural home at Evensong, where it remains a fixture in English cathedrals and parish churches to this day.

The tune almost universally sung with these words, ST CLEMENT, was composed by the Reverend Clement Cotterill Scholefield (1839-1904) and first appeared in Arthur Sullivan's Church Hymns with Tunes in 1874, where Sullivan named it after Scholefield's patron saint. Set in 9.8.9.8 metre, its flowing, rocking melody has become inseparable from Ellerton's text, even though contemporaries were not universally won over — Ralph Vaughan Williams and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, are both reported to have dismissed it as no more than a "feeble waltz tune."

Whatever the critics said of the music, the pairing of words and tune has proved remarkably durable. The hymn was chosen for the national celebrations marking Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, cementing its place as a hymn of civic as well as spiritual significance, and it has been sung at state occasions ever since, including the 1997 handover of Hong Kong and the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. Its lasting popularity was confirmed in a 2005 BBC Songs of Praise poll, in which it was voted the nation's third favourite hymn.

Performance

This recording, from St Peter's YouTube channel, is performed by St. Martin's Voices and runs 3 minutes 21 seconds; it was published to the channel in 2023.

Sources: hymnary.org · en.wikipedia.org · godsongs.net