Piano – D. H. Lawrence

Piano

BY D. H. 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.