St. Patrick's Breastplate is an old Irish prayer for protection, invoking the elements of the natural world "to give us strength through day and night."

Performed by the California Revels Solstice Ensemble. Shira Kammen's beautiful arrangement has been performed in several Revels productions, most notably in 2001, during another time of national tragedy.

Filmed in Berkeley at the César Chávez Memorial Solar Calendar--which aligns the points of the compass with the virtues of Courage, Determination, Tolerance, and Hope--this video is dedicated to the recovery of former Music Director and current Christmas Revels Song Leader Fred Goff.

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This piece was filmed responsibly using physical-distancing protocols.

St. Patrick's Breastplate lyrics:
1. I call upon the noble earth
To give me strength through day and night,
Her granite and her gems of worth
Are tokens of her various might.
And from her shores the endless sea
In calm and tempest girds the sphere,
And like the earth the waters free
Shall be my trust against all fear.

2. Above the earth and waters wide
The air enfolds the globe's fair breast,
In it good spirits do abide,
I count on them in strife and rest.
And last of all the golden fire
Shall be my great and strong ally,
The goodly powers that never tire
Are all my strength below, on high.

3. I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star-light heaven,
The glorious sun's life-giving rays,
The whiteness of the moon at ev'n.
The flashing of the lighting free,
The whirling wind's tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old, eternal rocks.

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