When the saints...go marching in
Oh when the saints go marching in
Oh how I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

Of all the saints, I want to know
The ones who write, I'd love to meet
Oh how I'd love to meet all the authors
When the saints go down the street

E.A. Poe...even Thoreau
Hemmingway would be ok
Mailer and Andrew Taylor
I'd learn to drink like a sailor
when these saints come strolling in

The Writers Guild...I'd be fulfilled
Meeting writers long since dead
Just think of what I'm learning
All that knowledge in their heads

I'd love to know, I'd love to know
Is Bill Shakespeare who we think?
Christie, Austen and Dickens
This is where the whole plot thickens
When the saints go marching in

Is it the best, of all the books
Is the bible just a tale
Can you think of someone better
When Melville speaks about a whale

Capote sits, while Chaucer reads
Bronte knits while Stoker bleeds
Oh how I want to be in that number
When these saints go marching in

The list goes on, oh on and on
There's just so many who've passed on
It's a list that leads by example
When these saints go marching in

Oh when the saints go marching in
When the saints go marching in
How I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

Scarred from beating and flogging
Left for dead by the tyranny of an Emperor  
But gifted life by the love of the King
In unmarked graves like poor peasant slaves
These people of God left only a forgotten story of heroism

They suffered for the cause of the Savior
Losing eyes and limbs for a cause greater than themselves
Persecution at the highest stakes
Death here on earth to attain love after
Martyred for all that is good and that is Holy

These saints, the ancient followers of the Messiah
Went unto their death for the sake of the Church
They were nailed to trees, burned while yet still breathing
They were eaten by wild animals, skinned alive
And still yet, the Church marched forward into Persecution

It was high time that the Church begun mourning
That the people of God began to cry out to God
Begging for His mercy, crying for justice
Requesting intercession from the great pain of their brothers and sisters
Praying the prayer of the Church; ‘Come Lord Jesus’

The citizens of this tyrannical empire became saints of Jesus Christ
Rome became the center of the Church of Christ
The people of God looking unto the Holy Father of Rome
To find good teaching of the Word of the Lord
Misled though they had become, the center of the Church on Earth lies in Rome

For two millennia saints of the Lord Christ have been martyred
By those who claim names other than the Lord
And by those who claim even the name of Christ
But the days of suffering have yet to end
And they will not end until we see the very face of God

For even on the very day of the feast of the Resurrection of our Lord
Twenty-one men, saints who had proclaimed the name of Christ
Served their purpose to give light and life to a darkened world
Even unto their deaths and the days and years following
For they saw the face of the risen Lord, Jesus Christ

We see on foreign shores our brothers in chains
Suffering for the cause of the Savior
For His Bride, the Church of Jesus Christ
We can see the suffering saints in chains and behind bars
And we can see them dying without food or water

We watched as our brothers bound by chains knelt on a seashore
Kneeling before the Lord Jesus Christ in faith and obedience to Him
But standing behind them the very hands of Satan
Attempting to dismember the Body of Jesus Christ
Oh what a pitiful, futile effort to dethrone our Risen Lord

The saints had their throats slit and heads removed from their very bodies
Their earthly lives ended for their faith in our Lord
What an absurd attempt to defeat the risen Christ
These hands of Satan vow to dismember the Church of Christ
But they will not be victorious over our Risen Lord

The lifeless bodies of these saints lay upon the sand of the shore and their souls lifted up
As if taking the heads of the saints of Christ brings upon more darkness
Only giving more truth and more life and light to darkened dying world
They may take the heads from individual saints
But they will never take the Head of the Body Of Jesus Christ

These murdered and martyred saints of Jesus Christ
Their blood pouring into the sea turning the ocean to blood
South of Rome, the city these hands of Satan vow to overthrow
The center of the Church on earth against whom they wage war
But attempt to overthrow our Lord, and you will be defeated

Is now not the time to lament?
Is now not the time for the Body of Christ to rise
And with one voice cry out to the heavens; ‘Come Lord Jesus!’
For now, just as all days past and to come,
The people of earth need the Savior

Perhaps the time has once again come to mourn
Perhaps the time has come for the Body of Christ to once again lament
To the east and the west, we hear terrible cries of terror
To the north and the south, we can see tears of despair
For once again, it has become ever-so obvious of our need of the Savior

Come Lord Jesus!