Today in class my seniors were reading “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day” by John Dryden. We were discussing various aspects of the poem, and had just discussed St. Cecilia being a wonderful musician, when we got to the Grand Chorus:
“As from the power of sacred lays
The spheres began to move,
And sang the great Creator’s praise
To all the blest above;
So, when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.”
One of my students interjected:
“Woah! She had better stop playing that one!”
On a related note, it is remarkable how any times in class we have been discussing things like the resurrection of the dead at the end of time (or anything involving death — today one of them was Charlotte Smith’s “Press’d by the moon, mute arbitress of tides“), the thoughts of young minds turn to zombies.
“Ok, we’re talking about the storm at sea here, where she says ‘Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed; / Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead.’ What do you think is happening?”
“The dead have risen and are going to walk the earth!”
“No, no… look. Three lines later it says, “Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave.”
“So? They can still walk the earth when they’re just bones. You won’t trick me. I’ve seen Army of Darkness!”
(For those of you who haven’t, here’s the relevant video clip: )