Lawrence, like Hardy, was most of his life a novelist. Unlike Hardy heoptedforsprung rhythminhis poetry, preferring the flexibility that sprung rhythm–whichplacesirregularmetricalstressesonimpor tantwords–provides.Hardy, of course, usedtraditionalverseforms with deliberate naivety and sometimes awkwardness. Lawrenceismoreobviouslysophisticated.The often prose-likenatureofPiano, bound as it is with alliteration, sibilanceandrhyming couplets, can also be said to bemimetic–thatis,itsshapeimitatesthe form of a piano piece, searching butfailing toconvince,justaspianoandappassionatoaremusicalins tructionswhich(it could be argued) do not workwithinthecontextofthepoem. Like Hardy’sTheSelf-Unseeing, Pianoisaboutthelostfelicity(happiness)ofchildhood, but Lawrence’s approach is very different fromHardy’s.Readthesethreeinterpretations,thenform ulateyourown.
In the poem, “Piano,”D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930,England)becomesnostalgic—whileawomansingsandp laysthepiano—and he starts to remember his childhood.Thepiano’smelodicsoundswould transport him back in time to his childhood years.Then, as a young child, he used to sit under thepiano—accompaniedby thestrongvibrationofthestrings—while his mother played the piano, sang, andsmiled. The smilewas probably caused bythe factthat the child was playing with her“small, poised feet”.
His childhood memory came suddenly, invading his new life by surprise. The entrappingpiano melody allowed him no choice but to remember the past:“In spite of myself, theinsidiousmasteryof song/Betrays me back.Thissuddenencounterwithhischildhood memories makes the poet long for those Sunday evenings—duringwintertime—when theyuse to play hymns. The piano was the central element, guidingthemwithitstinkling sounds.
Thepoetis now an adult. The beautiful memories of his childhood make him sad andmelancholic—but he isalso mad at the person who prompted these memories that make2his heart weep to“belong/TotheoldSunday eveningsathome,withwinteroutside/Andhymnsinthecosy parlour”. Because of the singer’sgreatandpassionatepianointerpretation,he“w eep[s] like a child for the past”. But there’s no going backbecause he is now a man whose“manhood[was]cast”.
Theonly liaisonbetweennowandthenremainsthebeautifulanddram aticpianoappassionato, which is tearing apart his soul. His innocent childhood is, now, only anoverwhelmingmemoryofagrownman:“The glamour/Of childish days is upon me, mymanhoodiscast/Downinthefloodofremembrance”.
Thismelancholicpoem“speaks”tothereaderwhooncefound himselfwandering downmemory lane, where some things are unforgettably special.
[BettyGilson]

This poem wasgiven to meto read last week byone ofourGetIntoReadinggroupmembers.K,whohasalsobeenvolunteering inourofficefoundthepieceofpaperwiththe poem on itfiled away with a collection of short stories, or rather sandwiched between otherthingsinhasteafteroneofthereadinggroups.Ithad beenlyingthere,forgottenabout, “It’s time we brought it back out into the light,”Ksaid,”isn’t it?” Urging me toreadit,telling me that it was one ofthe most beautiful poems that he’sever read, I turnedaway from my computer screen to do just that.
Whatstruck me most about re-reading ‘Piano’ by D H Lawrence was that it didn’t strikeme as being merely an act of nostalgia but a beautifully penned illustration on the natureof memory. One can almost hear the “tingling strings” of the “tinklingpiano”.Thesestrikemeas being like crystal clear watertrickling and tumbling in narrow, rockystreams. So our lives move on, never stopping–likeariver–and we’re left, on occasion,with our own “insidiousmastery of song” which takes back to somewhere wecannever really be again (and wemay well notwant to be)butinthosemomentsfloodsour present life all the same.
Piano
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;Taking me back down the vista of years, till I seeAchildsitting underthepiano,intheboomofthetingling stringsAnd pressing the small, poised feet ofa motherwho smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of songBetrays me back, tillthe heart of me weeps to belongTo the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outsideAndhymnsinthecosy parlour,thetinkling pianoourguide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamourWith the great black piano appassionato. The glamourOf childish days is upon me, my manhood is castDown in the flood of remembrance,I weep like a child for the past.
D. H. Lawrence, 1918
[JenTomkins]
PoemSummary
Lines1–4
From the opening line of “Piano” we are asked to see from the point ofview of thespeaker, who waxes nostalgic as he listens to awoman singing to himin the evening. Lyric poetry is defined by the expression of strong emotion from a first-personpointofview, so we are given every indication of whatto expect. The imagery of this first stanzasets thetonefor a poem about memory. Because memory itself is a function oftherelationship between past and present, it is significant that the poem takes placeat dusk, a time somewhere between day and night. The image that sets up his memory, “the vistaof years,” is also apropos because it prepares us for a visual remembrance: the speakerliterally sees a younger version of himself “sitting under the piano.” The“boomofthetingling strings,”anauralimage,echoesthesuddennesswithwhich thememory hitsthespeaker, and, as readers, we are left in the sameplace as the speaker.
Thesceneembracessentimentalitybecauseofitsclichédr epresentationofamotherandher child: he is sitting at her feet, adoringly, pressing her “small, poised feet.” Though wehave come toexpectthis type of imagery in greeting cards, we usually do notexpect itfrom poetry, especially modern poetry. It is significant thatthisimagepitstheinteriorworld ofthe house against the exterior world of winter, as domesticity suggests safety andtheinnocenceofchildhood,whereaswintersuggeststh einsecurity andexperienceofadulthood.Theaabbrhyme scheme also adds to the clichéd natureof the image, as itunderscorestheconventionalformofthepoem.
Lines5–8
The second stanza takes us deeper into the speaker’s memory, which he tells us he isfighting against. By using the word “insidious” to describe the woman’s “masteryofsong,” the speaker suggests an almost adversarial relationship with her. That he is“betrayed” deeper intohis memory, emphasizes the resistance he is putting up against theonslaught of the memory. The last twolines ofthe stanza participate again in imagebuilding. Now the speaker presents us with an idyllic picture of his childhood. Liketheinitial image of the speaker as a child with his mother, this representation is also stock; itconformstoallofthestereotypesofwhatamiddle-classSundaynightwiththefamilywould be like in the late-nineteenthcentury.Theimageofthepianolinksthefirsta ndsecondstanzatohighlighttherelationshipbetweenmus icandmemory.Musicwasthespeaker’s guide when he was a child, and it remains his guideasanadult.
Lines9–12
Thethirdstanzasignalsthespeaker’sthoroughcapitulat iontohismemory.Itis“vain”for the singer “to burst into clamour” because the speaker has already done that, givinghimself over to the barrage of feeling and memory. But it is not tothe singer that he giveshis passion, but to the past. In this stanza, the speaker also makes a link between
manhood and childhood. It is not only the adultworld ofthe presentthat he is forsakingfor the past, but alsothe adult worldofmanhood.By equating manhoodwiththeability toresistthetemptationofsentimentality,Lawrenceembo diesyetanotherstereotype:thatof the male whose identity rests upon his capacity notto feel. The image we are left with is the adult as child, uncontrollably weeping for his past.
[Answers.com]