Is there an anthem of the Pagan Revival?
Short answer: No, although it sure would be nice to have one.
Probably the closest we get to a New Pagan anthem is “Gwydion Pendderwen”'s 1981 We Won't Wait Any Longer:
We won't wait any longer,
We are stronger than before;
We won't wait any longer,
We are stronger!
We have trusted no man's promise,
We have kept to just ourselves,
We have suffered from the lies
In all the books on all your shelves,
But our patience and endurance
Through the Burning Times til now
Have given us the strength to keep our vow.
Chorus
You have grazed away the heather,
You have razed the sacred grove,
You have driven native peoples
From the places that they love;
Though your greed has been unbounded,
You have felt the pangs of shame
Each time you trod upon the Mother's name.
Chorus
Though you thought you had destroyed
Each memory of the ancient ways,
Still the people light the balefire
Every year on Solstice day;
And on Beltane and at Samhain
You will find us on the hill,
Invoking once again the Triple Will!
Chorus
Through the ages many peoples
Have risen and have gone,
But dispersed among the nations
Of the world we linger on.
Now the time has come to take
The sacred Cauldron of Rebirth,
And fulfill our ancient pledges to the Earth!
Chorus
Kudos to Gwydion, who considered himself a Muse poet in the Gravesian tradition, for being the first to dream of a fine, rousing anthem for the New Old Religion(s). Alas that his aims generally outpaced his abilities.
As an anthem, We Won't Wait Any Longer hasn't aged well. The Pagan World has marched on in the last few decades, and the song's specifically Wiccan imagery reads more exclusively now than it did then.
Likewise, while fully endorsing the song's sentiments, I've always felt that it was weakened by the fact that it specifically addresses itself to...whom? Christianity? The Church? The non-pagan world in general? In any event, to them: the bad guys of our story.
To this, my attitude is: Why make our enemies the center of our discourse? F**k 'em! Let's direct our anthem to ourselves, or to our gods.
Well, there's no reason why, as New Pagans, we need an anthem, or—in what is, after all, the Wonderful World of the Many—anthems. Perhaps some day someone will write one that we can all get behind.
Until such a time (if any), my own nomination for New Pagan Anthem goes to Daniel Pemberton's We Shall Go Home/Song of Exile*, from the 2004 film King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.
