'I WEEP LIKE A CHILD FOR THE PAST'

As I listen to taps being played on TV to honor the fallen of 9/11, I want to share with you a poem by D.H. Lawrence I have loved for more than 50 years. It’s one of the saddest and deepest poems I know. Lawrence was born on this date in 1885.

Piano 

By D. H. Lawrence

    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.