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Piano by

David Herbert LawrenceSoftly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cozy parlor, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor

With the great black piano appassionato.

The glamorOf childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

In the first quatrain of “Piano”, Lawrence sets the scene: near evening, a woman sings and softly plays piano for the speaker. His description suggests a private concert in an intimate, half-darkened room. Almost instantly, the experience returns the speaker to his childhood, when he crouched beneath the keyboard of the parlor piano at which his mother sat.
Vivid is his explanation of the piano’s fulminating vibrato as the hammers hit the strings. These vibrant aural elements, which are part of the speaker’s memory, are similar to the sensory associations of remembering—like the overwhelming sound the speaker experienced as a child seated at the piano’s base, so too is the emotionally overpowering nature of remembering that moment of his childhood.In the second quatrain, the speaker expresses his attitude towards this swift, involuntary sentimentality. Phrases like “in spite of myself”, “insidious mastery of song” both in line five and “betrays me back” in line six indicate the speaker’s distinct unwillingness to submit to the music’s treacherous ploy.
Yet, it is not until the final quatrain that we fully understand his unwillingness to submit. The music and its power to evoke emotion robs him of strength, releasing the floodgate of feeling in the form of tears. With his “manhood cast/Down in the flood of remembrance”, he weeps, an act considered inappropriate for a man.