The Piano ( Notebook Version )

D. H. Lawrence

Somewhere beneath that piano’s superb sleek black
Must hide my mother’s piano, little and brown with the back
That stood close to the wall, and the front’s faded silk, both torn
And the keys with little hollows, that my mother’s fingers had worn.

Softly, in the shadows, a woman is singing to me
Quietly, through the years I have crept back to see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the shaking strings
Pressing the little poised feet of the mother who smiles as she sings

The full throated woman has chosen a winning, living song
And surely the heart that is in me must belong
To the old Sunday evenings, when darkness wandered outside
And hymns gleamed on our warm lips, as we watched mother’s fingers glide

Or this is my sister at home in the old front room
Singing love’s first surprised gladness, alone in the gloom.
She will start when she sees me, and blushing, spread out her hands
To cover my mouth’s raillery, till I’m bound in her shame’s heart-spun bands

A woman is singing me a wild Hungarian air
And her arms, and her bosom and the whole of her soul is bare
And the great black piano is clamouring as my mother’s never could clamour
And the tunes of the past are devoured of this music’s ravaging glamour.

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