Historical Note: Her­bert Oake­ley com­posed “Abends” spe­ci­fic­al­ly for these words:

I was, many years ago, im­pelled to set Keble’s words to mu­sic for , in con­se­quence of the in­ad­e­qua­cy if not vul­gar­i­ty of the tune which had got into gen­er­al use. I re­fer to “Hurs­ley,” which, how­ev­er, is now less oft­en sung than for­mer­ly.

“Hursley,” strange to say, had been in use in Ger­ma­ny—where, as a rule, chor­al­es (An­gli­cè hymn tunes) are so dig­ni­fied and ad­mir­a­ble—since cir­ci­ter 1792, and is at­trib­ut­ed to Paul Rit­ter.

One of my rea­sons for dis­lik­ing it so much is the re­sem­blance it bears to a drink­ing song, Se vu­ol bal­la­re, in Noz­ze di Fi­ga­ro. As Mo­zart pro­duced that op­e­ra in 1786, he is re­spon­si­ble for the open­ing strain, which suits his Bac­cha­nal­i­an words ve­ry well. But to hear “Sun of my soul, Thou Savi­our dear,” sung to a live­ly tune, un­suit­a­ble to sac­red words, had the ef­fect of driv­ing me out of church.

Despite Oake­ley’s dis­taste for Hurs­ley, we like it.