Waxing Poetic: Piano by D. H. Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence (1885 – 1930) was an English novelist, poet, and playwright.  Although best known for his novels, Lawrence wrote almost 800 poems.  The following poem, Piano, describes so beautifully how in a brief moment we can be transported to the past by a smell, a sight, or in this case, music.

Piano

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.