
A cappella
"Before the day draws near its ending" is an ideal selection for a late afternoon or early evening service of worship such as Evensong (Evening Prayer). A prayer of adoration, it was written by Anglican priest, hymnodist and hymnologist John Ellerton (1826-1893) and first published in the Nantwich (Cheshire, England) Festival Book, 1880, included in the Westminster Abbey Hymn Book in 1883, and re-published in numerous other hymnals. Ellerton is perhaps best known for a similar evening hymn text written a decade earlier, "The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended" (1870).