Goode D - Anthem for All Saints' Day

Words

Gather my saints together unto me,
both old and new,
from jungle, ice-cap, bring their harvest through
Christ’s victory.

Call in all saints that cruelty still scorches,
strong through the Paraclete;
round the arena burning as tar torches;
in, as live leopard meat:

Priest who exchanged names to save one molest
in ghetto’s mass;
mothers who press their infant to their breast
from poisoning gas;

Souls who in time live by the values of
Eternity,
strengthened through suffering by sinews of
Integrity,

Reap your reward where Eden’s garden waits,
your freedom won
from pain. Now flowering joy for you creates
a garland round the sun,

While angels and archangels and your friends
roll out the sky
in a red carpet where my rainbow bends
to cradle your birth-cry.

Words Francis Warner (b. 1937)
based on Psalm 50 v. 5