Darkly rose the guilty morning. J. Anstice. [Good Friday.] Appeared in Hymns by J. Anstice., M.A., 1836, p. 24, in 4 stanzas of 6 lines. In 1841 it was included in The Child’s Christian Year, and repeated in the Leeds Hymn Book, 1853, the 1874 Supplement to the New Congregational Hymn Book, and others, with stanza i. l. 6, "thorn-plaited," for "thorn-platted"; and stanza ii., l. 6, "sad Gethsemane" for "green Gethsemane." In 1858 it was rewritten by the Rev. J. Ellerton, for a class of Sunday school children, and given in his Hymns for Sunday Schools & Bible Classes, Brighton, 1858, as, "Now returns the awful morning." This was again rewritten for Church Hymns, 1871. Of this arrangement stanzas ii. and iv. are by Mr. Anstice, and i., ii., v. are by Mr. Ellerton.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)