Piano

• Piano

  Lawrence highlights the power of music and how it can bring back powerful memories and emotions
• “Softly”

  Gentle atmosphere - contrast to the ending
• “Taking me back down the vista of years”

  Power of song = instantly transports him back to his old memories
• “Vista of years”

  imagery = Beautiful memories of childhood
• Speaker = 3rd person (even though Lawrence is talking about

  It gives distance
• Onomatopoeia - “Boom” of the “tingling”


  Shares how this memory is so real to him at this moment
• Positive image of his mother = graceful imagery

  “Poised”

  “Smiles”

  “Sings”
• Sibilance - last line of 1st stanza

  Creates a soothing tone to show the effect his mother had on him as a child and the comfort being next to her singing
• “Insidious mastery oof song Betrays me back”


  Uncomfortable to look back and the power of song and how it gradually brings back the memories and emotions he doesn’t want to feels
• “in spite of myself“

  Tells us he doesn’t want to go back to these memories.
• Personification - “heart of me weeps”

  Emphasises the great sadness he feels when he thinks back to his childhood
• Contrast - “winter outside” + “cosy parlour”

  Emphasises security & comfort family provides
• ”Hymns”

  Religious + wholesome
• Onomatopoeia - “Tinkling”

  Create gentle sound which reflects with the family he grew up with and how soothing they were for him
• Personification - ”piano our guide”

  • Paints how simple life was when he was a child
  • Power of music = piano gives them a sense of direction
• Plosives - “black piano appassianto”

  Hammering of the strings = mirrors peak of emotions about the memory
• Figurative Language - “flood of remembrance”

  • “flood” = can’t stop the memories, nothing he can do
  • Highlights the power of music and song
• Simile - “weep like a child for the past”

  • Loss of masculinity
  • Indicate expectations of masculinity
• Three quatrains of rhyming couplets

  Written like a song in some sense which links to the theme of the power of music
• Enjambment

  Flood of memory
• Trochaic meter

  Longing to return to the happy memories
• Tone

  • Nostalgic
  • Emotional - contrast form 1st and last stanza
  • Longing
• Themes

  1. Family
  2. Memory
  3. Power of Music
  4. Childhood
  5. Masculinity