Hans Adolph Brorson, a Danish bishop, wrote this in the last year of his life, one of seventy hymns published after his death in a collection titled, fittingly, Svane-Sang — Swan Song. He calls the saints “martyrs” in the broadest sense: everyone who suffered for the faith and endured to the end, who “wept through bitter years” and were despised for sowing God’s Word on the steep and narrow path. The Danish text hammers one small word, now: they now serve God day and night, now how glorious they appear, they now enjoy the Sabbath rest. The saints appear in the white of their baptismal garments, “like thousand snow-clad mountains bright,” gathered at a heavenly altar where Christ is both host and guest. One editorial decision here is worth knowing: working on stanza 3 in January 2003, the committee deliberately rewrote its opening lines to place the action of salvation in God’s hands rather than the saints’. The tune is not a chorale at all but a Norwegian folk melody, collected by Ludvig Lindeman from the village of Heddal in Telemark.
Sung at Our Saviour
2025