Descant to the hymn tune ST CLEMENT. Audio: hymnal verse / descant verse (with the lower ending ). Free score.  If your choir still has an A in the tank at the end of evensong, they - and the organ - can go up a step to a final A, or divisi F-A.)

The tune ST. CLEMENT was composed for this text by Clement Scholefield (1839-1904), a clergyman and self-taught musician. He wrote several hymn tunes, of which only one - this one - survives. It appeared in Arthur S. Sullivan's 1874 hymnal, Church Hymns with Tunes, and the tune was 'named' for its composer by the publisher. Scholefield was the curate of of the church where at the time Sullivan was the organist. The cathedral establishment of Scholefield's day were dismissive of this tune, though its singing public has a much higher opinion, as does the Royal Navy, which has listed this particular combination as its evening hymn. John Ellerton (1826-1893) wrote the evening text 'The day thou gavest Lord is ended' at the height of the Victorian missionary era, as pat of A Liturgy for Missionary Meetings (1870). It was published a year later in the text-only Church Hymns (SPCK, 1871), a missionary-themed hymnbook. This combination exists in German hymnals with the translation Du lässt den Tag, o Gott, nun enden.