The Full Text of “Piano”
1Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
2Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
3A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
4And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
5In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
6Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
7To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
8And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
9So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
10With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
11Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
12Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
The Full Text of “Piano”
1Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
2Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
3A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
4And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
5In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
6Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
7To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
8And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
9So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
10With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
11Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
12Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
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“Piano” Introduction
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"Piano" is a lyric poem written by the English writer D.H. Lawrence about the poignant pull of childhood nostalgia. While listening to a woman singing, the speaker is transported "back down the vista of years" to Sunday nights spent listening to his beloved mother playing hymns on the piano. The speaker, now a grown man, "weeps like a child for the past," sensing both the beauty of these memories and the sad reality that he can never actually experience those moments again. "Piano" was published in Lawrence's first poetry collection, Love Poems and Others (1913), and it frequently appears in anthologies.
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“Piano” Summary
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The speaker listens to a woman singing softly in the early evening. The woman's song transports the speaker through the beautiful landscape of the past until he sees a young boy nestled underneath a piano, surrounded by the vibrations of its quivering strings. The boy is pushing his mother's small, elegant feet (perhaps onto the piano pedals) while she smiles and sings.
Against the speaker's wishes, the treacherous music pulls him back to this moment in time, until his heart is sick with longing to once again be that boy on those cozy Sunday nights inside his childhood home, away from the winter cold. He longs to again listen to hymns in their snug, warm living room, where the sparkling notes of the piano would lead them in song.
It would be pointless now for the singer to erupt into a powerful song alongside the passionate playing of the black grand piano. The alluring beauty of the speaker's childhood has him in its grasp, and his adult life is lost in the flood of his memories. He cries like a little boy for those days gone by.
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“Piano” Themes
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Memory, Nostalgia, and Childhood
"Piano" explores the powerful hold that childhood memories can exert throughout one’s life. Listening to a piano player transports the poem’s speaker back to his childhood, when his mother would play the piano and sing hymns on Sunday nights. The speaker weeps with longing to once again experience “the old Sunday evenings at home,” yet understands that, as a grown man, he no longer can. His memories thus provoke deep sadness, reminding him of his youthful sense of wonder while casting childhood as a kind of lost homeland to which he can never return.
At first, the speaker’s reminiscing seems pleasant. Listening to a woman singing at “dusk,” he travels "back down the vista of years" to his childhood. He recalls "sitting under the piano" and playfully "pressing" his mother's feet while she smiled and sang. The weather outside was cold and harsh, but the speaker’s home was “cosy.” Back then, the speaker felt protected not just by his mother but also by the solid piano around him. The music itself was like a “guide,” the speaker says, evoking his childhood sense of trust and faith. It’s no wonder the speaker would feel nostalgic for this happy, simple time.
Yet even as the speaker longs to return to "the glamour of childish days"—to the beauty of his childhood—he knows he can’t really relive those Sunday nights with his mother. Nostalgia, here, is tricky: it doesn’t just bring up warm, fuzzy memories, but also causes a painful sense of loss. And because the speaker’s memories remind him that he can no longer “belong” to the past, he tries to resist their pull. In fact, he claims these memories rise up "In spite of myself," through "the insidious mastery of song." In other words, he can’t control the way his mind suddenly leaps back to his youth.
Such is the power of nostalgia that even the passionate singer he’s now listening to can't distract him from the “flood of remembrance” washing over him. The speaker's "manhood" (maturity) is lost in this "flood" of memory; all but forgetting that he’s an adult, he “weep[s] like a child for the past.” Notice, however, that he's still not a child—only like one. Though he feels his "heart" belongs, at this moment, to his past, he’s stuck firmly in the present.
The poem thus shows how powerful and heart-wrenching memories can be, while admitting that they offer only an illusion of the past. It depicts nostalgia as a dangerous, yet irresistible, double-edged sword.
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Music, Memory, and Emotion
Listening to a woman singing transports the speaker of “Piano” back to his childhood, when his mother would play hymns on the piano. The speaker blames this effect on the "insidious mastery of song," conveying music’s power to stir up vivid emotions and memories—even against the listener’s wishes.
For the speaker, song triggers deeply held—perhaps deeply buried—thoughts and feelings. As he listens to the present-day singer, her music exerts a powerful pull, metaphorically "taking" him “back down the vista of years.” It's as though the vibrations in the air loosen his mind and imagination. Though he tries to resist, the music quickly affects him "in spite of" himself and has an "insidious" (subtly harmful) quality. His heart "weeps" under its spell. For all his adult restraint, he's no match for music’s transportive power—which he seems to resent on some level.
Music not only has the power to trigger memories, the poem implies, it also helps those memories linger in the first place. That is, the speaker seems to remember his past so vividly because it’s stuck in his mind like a melody. The present-day singing makes him think of the Sunday evenings he would spend around the piano with his mother; he recalls the "boom of the tingling [piano] strings" and describes those sounds as a kind of trustworthy "guide." His memory links the comfort and security he felt in these moments with the music his mother played.
In the end, not even impassioned singing in the present can pull the speaker out of his reverie, so deep is his longing for the past. Thus, the poem illustrates music’s power to move and unsettle its listeners, while suggesting that the nostalgia it stirs up can be even more powerful.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Piano”
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Lines 1-3
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,When "Piano" begins, the speaker is listening to a woman "singing to" him at "dusk," or early evening. Notice how line 1 uses sibilance to conjure a hushed, almost magical atmosphere:
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
These whispery consonants suggest quiet and reverence as the speaker listens to this "singing."
It's not clear where this is literally happening: the speaker might be at a bar, party, or lounge of some sort, or perhaps he's listening to this woman singing in one of their homes. Symbolically, the fact that this is taking place at "dusk" (the transition between day and night) signals that the speaker is about to straddle two worlds: adulthood and childhood, present and past.
The song transports the speaker "back down the vista of years"; it's as though he's moving down a stack of memories in his mind. Soon enough, the speaker can see his childhood self "sitting under the piano." The enjambment between lines 2 and 3 evokes the swiftness with which the speaker's childhood self suddenly appears:
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, [...]The child's position under the piano also suggests how young and small he is, and how the large instrument surrounds him like a shelter.
Note, too, that this memory is narrated in the present tense: the speaker says that the child is "sitting" rather than that he "sat." As a result, the poem's actual present and imagined past seem to overlap. And yet, there's also a clear separation between the speaker's past and present selves: the speaker says that he sees "A child" rather than that he sees himself. In this way, the poem subtly anticipates the fact that the speaker can never truly return to the childhood he remembers.
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Lines 3-4
in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings. -
Lines 5-6
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, -
Lines 6-8
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. -
Lines 9-12
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.
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“Piano” Symbols
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Dusk
The poem begins with the speaker listening to a woman singing "in the dusk," a transitional time of day when the final light of the afternoon begins to fade into the darkness of night. This in-between space represents the in-between space that the speaker is in by the poem's end: no longer an adult, his "manhood" drowned "in the flood of remembrance, but also not the child he once was.
As the speaker listens to this music, he is transported "back down the vista of years" until he sees his childhood self "sitting under the piano" as his mother sings. He describes this memory in the present tense (his child self is "sitting" rather than "sat"), as though that child is right there with the speaker in the present. In the poem's final moments, he "weep[s] like a child" for what he's lost. The speaker is in a liminal, transitional space that mirrors the time of day in which the poem takes place: no longer a man, but still not a child (only "like" one).
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“Piano” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
Alliteration, assonance, and consonance work together to fill the poem with music.
Much of this alliteration is sibilant, as with "Softly," "singing," and "see" in the poem's first two lines (there's additional non-alliterative sibilance in "dusk" and "vista"); "smiles" and "sings" in line 4; and "spite" and "song" in line 5. All these whispery /s/ sounds create a quiet, reverent atmosphere that conveys the speaker's wistful longing for the past. These delicate sounds make the speaker's memories seem fragile, intangible, and even ghostly, as though they might be swept away at any moment.
Not all of the poem's alliteration is so gentle, however. The plosive /p/ sounds in line 4, for example, add some pops of playfulness as the speaker describes "pressing" his mother's "poised feet" as she plays the piano. And in line 6, the booming /b/ sounds convey the power with which the music pulls the speaker's mind back in time:
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
These /b/ sounds are almost like pangs of the speaker's heart as it swells with longing to "belong" to the past.
There's more /p/ alliteration in the next few lines as well: when the speaker mentions the "parlour," the "tinkling piano," and the "piano" playing "appassionato" (this word can be considered alliterative because the shared /p/ sound occurs at the start of a stressed syllable). These pops of alliteration again fill the poem with bursts of music.
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Assonance
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Caesura
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Enjambment
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Metaphor
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Sibilance
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Simile
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"Piano" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Vista
- Tingling
- Poised
- In Spite of Myself
- Insidious
- Betrays me back
- Hymns
- Cosy
- Parlour
- Tinkling
- Vain
- Clamour
- Appassionato
- Manhood
- Cast Down
- Remembrance
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A pleasant/impressive view. Also a general survey of events in the past or future.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Piano”
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Form
"Piano" has a simple form consisting of three quatrains (four-line stanzas). Each quatrain consists of two rhyming couplets.
This shape lends the poem some steady music. And thanks to the poem's varied line lengths and frequent enjambments, that music never feels rigid stiff.
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Meter
"Piano" doesn't have a regular meter. Instead, its lines feature varying lengths and rhythms, and this adds to the poem's contemplative, thoughtful tone. The speaker's memories swell up of their own accord, and the poem doesn't try to make them stick to any particular pattern.
That said, the second halves of the lines tend to fall into anapaests (da-da-DUM). Take a look at the latter halves of lines 2-8, which feature three anapests (sometimes with an iamb, da-DUM, substituted):
[...] the vis- | ta of years, | till I see
[...] in the boom | of the ting- | ling strings
[...] of a mo- | ther who smiles | as she sings.[...] the insid- | ious mast- | ery of song
[...] till the heart | of me weeps | to belong
[... even- ] ings at home, | with win- | ter outside
[...] the tink- | ling pian- | o our guide.The first halves of these lines have more irregular rhythms, but there's still definitely a waltz-like sound going on that helps cast a musical spell over the poem—just as the song does over the speaker.
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Rhyme Scheme
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“Piano” Speaker
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The second draft of the poem was written not long after Lawrence's own mother died, and many readers view the poem as autobiographical. Whether or not readers take the first-person speaker here to be Lawrence himself, it's clear that this person had a close, loving relationship with his mother when he was a child. He remembers sitting under the piano, sheltered by its shape and enthralled by his mother's happy singing. She brought joy and comfort to his life (and perhaps this memory is painful for the speaker because she is no longer around).
The fact that the speaker would prefer not to remember these happy moments perhaps suggests that his adult life lacks the warmth and love of his childhood.
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“Piano” Setting
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In the poem's present, the speaker is listening to a woman singing. It's "dusk"—a transitional time of day when the light of the afternoon is starting to give way to the darkness of night. This in-between setting reflects the fact that the speaker is transported to a kind of in-between space in the poem: he straddles the world of his present self and that of his childhood memories.
The woman's singing transports the speaker "back down the vista of years," until he sees his childhood self sitting beneath a piano as his mother happily sings. He recalls the warmth of comfort of these "old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside." He describes his memories in the present tense, as though they're actually right there alongside him in the present. They feel intensely vivid and immediate, to the point that they eventually drown out the speaker's present reality. Even the "clamour" of the present singer and "the great black piano appassionato" can't pull the speaker from his reverie.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Piano”
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Literary Context
English writer David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) is best known for his controversial novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), which was subject to an obscenity trial for its explicit language and depictions of sex. The trial, ironically, helped to skyrocket the book's popularity, and it went on to sell millions of copies. Lawrence also penned hundreds of poems, with "Piano" appearing relatively early in his career.
Lawrence was included in the first Georgian Poetry anthology, published in 1912 and named for the reign of King George V. But critics more often group Lawrence in with modernism, a movement of the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries that championed new, experimental artistic forms. Modernist poets rejected the strict structures of the past, turning instead to free verse in their writing. While "Piano" uses a steady rhyme scheme, it features only a loose, irregular meter that bends to the speaker's thoughts; there's no rigid pattern of syllables here.
Modernists also introduced the stream of consciousness writing style, with poets trying to capture not just their speaker's thoughts, but the actual experience of thinking them. "Piano" reflects this style as well, as readers feel like they're following the speaker's memories as they emerge in real-time.
Historical Context
Lawrence wrote the first draft of "Piano" in 1906 and revised it in 1911, not long after the death of his mother, Lydia. Lawrence and his mother were close, and her death devastated him; his own grief undoubtedly informed the melancholy tone of "Piano." Lawrence's 1913 novel Sons and Lovers was inspired by Lydia's death as well.
Lawrence also had a deep interest in the burgeoning field of psychoanalysis and in particular in the disconnect between people's outer appearances and their inner realities. Such interests are reflected in this poem's focus on the power of memory and the contrast between the speaker's adult demeanor and childlike weeping "for the past."
More broadly, the early 20th century was a time of rapid and widespread change. The Victorian era (which coincided with the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901) had been an age of strict morality and social inequality. Modernism arose at the tail end of this era, with writers responding to a world that felt increasingly fast-paced and unpredictable through inventive forms that broke away from the rigid conventions of the past.
Finally, it's worth noting that the piano was a common feature in middle and upper-class households during both the Victorian and Edwardian eras (which Lawrence's life overlaps). The piano formed a kind of musical center around which members of a family could gather, singing both hymns (as in "Piano") and the popular songs of the day.
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More “Piano” Resources
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External Resources
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Lawrence and Modernism — Learn more about the poet's life via the Yale Modernism Lab.
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The Great and Troubled Life of D.H. Lawrence — Listen to a radio documentary about Lawrence, put together by poet John Hegley.
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The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "Piano."
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The Rehabilitation of D.H. Lawrence — Read an article exploring the changing reputation of D.H. Lawrence after his lifetime.
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Georgian Poetry — Explore the 1911-1912 poetry anthology in which D.H. Lawrence appeared.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by D. H. Lawrence
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