3. Piano - DH Lawrence

Softly, 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 cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide. 

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

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour 

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast 

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

This poem by famous poet DH Lawrence shows a man thinking back to his childhood to when he would sit underneath his mother's piano while she would play and sing to him. These memories of his past are brought back to him while a woman playing and singing to him, which reminds him of his past. The first verse has an attitude of positive nostalgia, thinking happily of his time with is mother. However, the second verse thinks back with an angrier attitude. He seems angry at the fact that the sound brings these memories back. I noticed that the first two lines of stanzas one and two talk about his feelings and attitude, and then the last two lines of the first two stanzas set the scene of what he speaks about. The third stanza breaks away from this format, and I feel like the poet is once again thinking back with positive thoughts. He talks about the "glamor" of his childish days. At the very end, he says that he weeps like a child for the past. Not only is this a clever play on words (using the simile of a child to talk about his childhood), but it also doesn't explain what emotion the weeping is expressing. It could be expressing the positive ideas of the first verse or the negative ideas of the second verse, but either way, it expresses a deluge of emotion, which also backs up the line before it, saying "Down in the flood of rememberance".