Adsunt tenebrae primae. [Evening.] An anonymous hymn in Daniel, i. 194, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, from the Mozarabic Breviary (Toledo, 1502, f. 304), Thomasius, Rome, 1747, ii. p. 425, and Migne's Patrologia, tom. 86, col 928. “Ymni de prima vigilia"; also col. 965 See also Daniel, iv. 57, where may be found a severe criticism on one of the lines in the Mozarabic Breviary, which may be the correct reading, notwithstanding. [Rev. W. A. Shoults, B. D.]
Translation in common use:—
1. The night is closing o'er us. By W. J. Blew, first printed on a fly-leaf for use in his own church, and then published in his Church Hymn & Tune Book, 1852. Trin. to Adv., No. 41, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines. In 1867 it was transferred to the People's Hymnal, and in 1872 to the Hymnary, No. 622.
--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)