In D.H. Lawrence’s poem “Piano,” the reader is invited to experience one of the speaker’s most precious memories.
Based upon the information provided in the poem, the speaker is listening to a woman sing, perhaps within a concert hall or some form of echoing space. The tonal quality of the woman’s voice sends the speaker of the poem into a child-time memory that is not actually a single event, but a compilation of impressions throughout the Sundays of his childhood. In his memory, he remembers sitting warm and comfortable within the parlor on cold days, singing songs with his family while his mother played along on her piano. The tone of the poem is wistful as the speaker relates his memories and is somewhat irritated by the constant interruption of the present day.
However, closer examination of the poem causes one to begin questioning the source of the irritation, whether it is the interruption of the music into the memory, or the memory into the music. The poem ends with a touch of situational irony as it is made clear that the speaker is not weeping in an emotional response to the present-day singer as might be assumed by an observer, but is instead moved by his own sense of loss as he remembers his childhood.
These ideas are conveyed to the reader through the speaker’s choice of imagery. The concept that sound quality is the trigger for the speaker’s powerful memory is expressed through his choice of syntax in relating it to his childhood memory. The woman sings to him “in the dusk” (1), suggesting a person that cannot be clearly seen. It is also assumed as a result that the voice is at least relatively bodiless, in that it cannot be positively related to the portion of the figure that can be discerned.
This is very much like the impressions that might be gained by “a child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings” (3) who calmly watches “the small, poised feet of a mother” (4) as she presses on the pedals of the instrument and hears her voice above him, around him and through him as she sings. This image conveys a sense of protected warmth and comfort making a clear connection between the safety of the womb, with the all-powerful voice of the mother up above, and the child under the piano.
This is strongly contrasted against the continuously interfering outer world of the present, which is again introduced in the second stanza with the specific term ‘insidious’, something that entraps or beguiles, and the idea that the sound “Betrays me back” (6).
The present is a world of constant interference, betrayal and unprotected interaction with the outside world.
The hyperbole of this second stanza is brought to its emotional height as the speaker tells us “the heart of me weeps to belong / To the old Sunday evenings at home” (6-7), pulling strongly at the nostalgic sentiments of wishing to be safely childlike again, wishing again to be protected from the slings and arrows of the real world. As the sound of the present works upon his mind, the speaker finds it difficult to forget family gatherings with everyone singing together, the “tinkling piano as our guide” (8). Here, too, the idea that the parlor served as a surrogate womb for the family, keeping them safe from the desperate coldness of outside is again brought forward “with winter outside / And hymns in the cozy parlor” (7-8).
As in the second stanza, so does the third stanza continue to contrast the outside present world with the comforting and womb-like interior of his childhood memories, making it clear that the speaker is struggling between the two time periods but not clear where he would rather be until his word choice is examined in closer detail.
The theme of the poem seems to be the struggle of the adult versus the child as the speaker struggles against losing his adult reason to his emotional childhood. The unexpected effect of the woman’s singing inspires an emotional response in him connected with a particularly poignant and cherished childhood memory. Because of its importance to his own sense of safety and security, the speaker is unable to ignore the memory triggered by the present experience “in spite of me” (5). By continuously moving between the safety and warmth of childhood with the irritation in his inability to remain in the present, words such as ‘insidious’ and ‘betray’ suggest the direction of the struggle is to retain control of reason and adulthood.
This is supported as the speaker berates himself for allowing his ‘manhood’ to become lost in the ‘glamour’.
These suggest that while he experiences a strong emotional reaction to the music he hears because of the memories invoked by it, this experience is not necessarily viewed as a positive event because of the way in which he loses control over his adult abilities. Yet, despite his best attempts to return to the present, he continues to be pulled back in time and eventually must concede his emasculation by the sound.