I was surprised to learn that the celebrated British composer, Sir Edward Elgar, was a chemist and inventor, but I was even more astonished that he wrote both the music and the lyrics to a creepy, Halloween-worthy piece of choral music called “Owls (An Epitaph)”.
The music is jarring and disjunct and these lyrics are something of an enigma.
"What is that? ... Nothing; A wild thing hurt but mourns in the night, And it cries, In its dread, Till it lies, Dead at the foot of the tree; All that can be is said. What is it? ... Nothing."
Music historians have several interpretations for “what is it?”
Maybe it was about a pet bunny, or even an odd musical joke.
My personal take is that the narrator hears the “dread scream” of a wild thing and dismisses it as “Nothing.”
In nature, “dread screams” are given by mammals and birds in extreme peril. When a wild thing is about to die, when it is in the clutches of a predator, it screams bloody murder. The scream apparently is a reflex, but perhaps it serves as warning others, or maybe the scream startles the predator into dropping it.
But a dread scream may be a call for help, especially during breeding season. Other creatures respond and actually help the doomed creature survive. But not always.
A call for help is often just dismissed as Nothing.This coming week IPR will be calling for help. Certainly they are not experiencing the dread of impending death, but they do need help to survive.
Please don’t ignore or dismiss the Fall Fund Drive as "Nothing."
