Writing Skills ; Read the poem below carefully and answer the following questions:

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.

1. What picture of mother is depicted in the poem?
2. Describe the nostalgic melancholy of the speaker.
3. What image of a childhood do you get from the poem?
4 Summarise the poem.
5. What is the influence of music in the speaker's life?
6. What are the central ideas of the poem?
7. What is the structure of the poem?
8. Comment on the author's position and on the tone, of the poem.

Answer.
1. The poem contains just twelve lines. Within twelve lines, the poet uttered thé name of two women. One is the pianist woman and the second one is his mother. Mother holds a greater impact upon the psychology of the sons. A son is brought up to be tied with his mother's apron. So is the poet. The poet's mother was a pupil's teacher. The pupil's teacher could play piano those days. So, he was accustomed to listening to the music of his mother. Thus he is unconsciously attracted by the music of piano. Actually the music is merely an issue. The matter is all about poet's mother. No children can escape the shadow of their mother. The affections and memories of motherliness walk as a shadow with every child. It's an existence. It is an indescribable feeling. The poet was also caught by the motherliness. In the poem, the picture of the poet's mother is very sharp. The reminiscence of the poet tells the truth. His mother was very much caring to her children. She amused them playing piano. We guess about his mother this far.

2. The speaker of, the poem is the poct himself. Rut he avists beth in the paa i tis prasent at a time. When he listens to the music of the piano, his mind travels to the past. He goes back like Ebenezer Scrooge of 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge travelled to the past, present and future. Ebenezer Scrooge became very sad when he visited his past, schooling and even his girl friend. The poet also became very sad when he sensed his mother, family members, hymns and the piano. Thus, the poet exists in two episodes: past and present." The mood of the poem is the touches of nostalgia for the childhood. Nostalgia is a condition or state of mind, which finds the happy.moment of the past. Thus the tonal attitude of the poem is nostalgic melancholy. The past moment of the poet also touches the heart of the readers. The poet, who is the speaker of the poem, tells his past story with the sad note of the piano. That's how one connects with one's past.

3. In the poem, the poet goes to his happy childhood moment. It's nothing but pure positive note of his childhood. He reached to his childhood by the tune of piano. His past memories tell little about his childhood. But it means a lot. The deeper meaning of the past moment shows a colourful picture. So, the childhood of the poet was playful. He had many good moments with his mother. He used to sit under the piano when his mother used to play piano. Here the poet is haunted by his childhood memories. So, he was influenced from the outside. But when he entered into his past, he was not trying to come back in the reality. After that he became absorbed in childhood memories. He was totally caught by it. The poet was not escaping from his childhood. He was trying to stay
there. It means he had memorable childhood.

4. In the poem a lady is playing on a piano and singing to the speaker in
the dusk. Suddenly an image of a child comes into the speaker's mind. The child is sitting under the piano and pressing the poised feet of the mother. She seems to be enjoying the warm company of her male child. The speaker identifies himself with the child. This present state takes him back to his early childhood. He imagines that his mother is playing on the piano and he is sitting under it. He is in a comfortable room on Sunday evening with his permissive mother. The speaker sinks into his past romantic vision forgetting the present completely. He throws his manhood and begins to cry like a child.

5. Music has greater importance to the humankind. It's not just a medium of entertainment. The tune of music made the poet romantic. He became completely pensive. This music knocked the door at the poet's mind. Music is a higher art. Music connected him with his past life. He reached his childhood with the wing of music. Greek philosopher Plato said: 'Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. Thus the importance of music in philosophy is. immense'. The poet D. H. Lawrence applied this philosophy to his poem 'Piano'. Piano is one of the media of producing music. If piano is the body, then music is the soul of it. Body and soul are inseparable. The soul is unseen, so is music. Thus soul is the inner part of body and music is the inner part of piano or any instrument. That's why, body touches the piano and the soul touches the music. For this reason it is said music is the food of soul. None can live without food. So, to deny the'music is to deny the soul. It is, therefore, almost a. verbosity to write more about the importance of music.

6. By this poem, the poet showcases the limited time one has as a child and how, once this time ends, all it leaves us with, is the bittersweet memories made and the wish to have more time, to make more of them. The poet points out the importance of childhood days, and the need to cherish each and every moment of it. By the breakdown of the poet in the end, he conveys the finality of the period, which once ends, is lost forever. So it is all the more important to make good memories out of it.

7. In the poem, the poet uses regular stanzas which are all end- stopped. This creates the effect that the memory is neatly contained. However, other parts of the structure contradict this. The line lengths are unusually, and consistently long. They are also somewhat irregular. Enjambment adds to the flowing, expansive effect. It is as if the memory is like an unstoppable river, threatoning to get out of control. The first stanza juxtaposes the present and past tightly together. The woman 'singing' transports the poet who is telling us about his own childhood- into the flashback. Unusually, the present tense is used both for present and the past - as if the past is as vivid as the present. This memory feels like it happening now. In the second stanza, the poet starts to analyse how this flashback makes him feel, and this continues in the final stanza. The final idea is a sensory one - he breaks down and weeps. It is as if the memory is so vivid and powerful that the loss of it affects him as a real loss, physically, in the present. The rhyme scheme is strongly regular, despite the shifting line-length, which gives a strong rhythm and melody, which we can see in internal rhyme of 'tingling', 'strings' / 'sings'. This links to the musical theme of the poem. The strong rhyme adds to the neat, contained effect, which makes it even more shocking when at the end of the poem, his emotions get out of control in the 'flood of remembrance'.

8. A poem can be written from an objective point of view or from a subjective viewpoint. The poem is objective, if the poet deals with some universal themes. On the other hand, the poem is subjective if the theme of the poem is personal. Considering the above criteria we can presume that the position of the poet in the poem is objective. The poem bears the themes of the power of imagination, music and męmory. One evening the pianist woman was singing a song in a party. The poet listened to the woman's playing piano. The song touched the heart of the poet so deeply that he reached to his childhood. The pianist woman-made him remember his mother. Though there might have personal touch of the poet in the poem, it deals with the universal themes. Thus, the poem is objective. The tone of the poem is nostalgic. The poem shows that a woman is playing on the piano and singing to a man. Her song made the man nostalgic. Riding on the tune of the song, the man went back to his early childhood. In the poem the man is the poet himself. The mind of the poet no longer remains in the room. He sees through the window of his memory that his mother does not feel.