Day is done, but love unfailing

Day is done, but love unfailing. James Quinn* (1919-2010). This hymn was published in Quinn’s New Hymns for All Seasons (1969) and in his Praise for All Seasons (1994). It was almost certainly written with the Welsh tune AR HYD Y NOS (‘All through the night’) in mind. The sequel to ‘love unfailing’ is ‘dwells ever near’ in line 2, and the hymn ends very peacefully with ‘This eventide’. Throughout, the words follow the tune with consummate skill.  There are three 8-line stanzas, with a variation in the second quatrain to give three rhyming lines. The result is a hymn that can take its place as a classic evening hymn, alongside ‘Abide with me; fast falls the eventide’*, which it echoes in...