"Old woman, old woman, will you go a-shearing?
Speak a little louder, for I'm very hard of hearing."
OLD BALLAD.
Of all old women hard of hearing,
The deafest, sure, was Dame Eleanor Spearing!
On her head, it is true,
That served for a pair of gold rings to go through;
But for any purpose of ears in a parley,
They heard no more than ears of barley.
No hint was needed from D. E. F.
You saw in her face that the woman was deaf:
From her twisted mouth to her eyes so peery,
Each queer feature asked a query;
A look that said, in a silent way,
"Who? and What? and How? and Eh?
I'd give my ears to know what you say!"
And well she might! for each auricular
Was deaf as a post-and that post in particular
That stands at the corner of Dyott-street now,
And never hears a word of a row!
Ears that might serve her now and then
As extempore racks for an idle pen;
Or to hang with hoops from jewellers' shops
With coral, ruby, or garnet drops;
Or, provided the owner so inclined,
Ears to stick a blister behind;
But as for hearing wisdom or wit,
Falsehood, or folly, or tell-tale-tit,
Or politics, whether of Fox or Pitt,
Sermon, lecture, or musical bit,
Harp, piano, fiddle, or kit,
They might as well, for any such wish,
Have been buttered, done brown, and laid in a dish!
She was deaf as a post,- as said before,-
And as deaf as twenty similes more,
Including the adder, that deafest of snakes,
Which never hears the coil it makes.
She was deaf as a house
Of language would call as deaf as bricks-
For her all human kind were dumb,
Her drum, indeed, was so muffled a drum,
That none could get a sound to come,
Unless the Devil who had Two Sticks!
She was deaf as a stone say one of the stones
Demosthenes sucked to improve his tones;
And surely deafness no further could reach
Than to be in his mouth without hearing his speech!
She was deaf as a nut- for nuts, no doubt,
Are deaf to the grub that 's hollowing out -
As deaf, alas! as the dead and forgotten-
(Gray has noticed the waste of breath,
In addressing the "dull, cold ear of death"),
Or the Felon's ear that was stuffed with Cotton
Or Charles the First, in statue quo :
Or the still-born figures of Madame Tussaud,
With their eyes of glass, and their hair of flax,
That only stare, whatever you "ax,"
For their ears, you know, are nothing but wax.
She was deaf as the ducks that swam in the pond, And would n't listen to Mrs. Bond,
As deaf as any Frenchman appears,
When he puts his shoulders into his ears:
And - whatever the citizen tells his son
As deaf as Gog and Magog at one!
Or, still to be a simile-seeker,
As deaf as dog's-ears to Enfield's Speaker!
She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy,
Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy;
Whose organs, for fear of our modern sceptics,
Were plugged with gums and antiseptics.
She was deaf as a nail that
A meaning into, for all your clamor —
There never was such a deaf old Gammer!
So formed to worry
Both Lindley and Murray,
By having no ear for music or grammar !
Deaf to sounds, as a ship out of soundings,
Deaf to verbs, and all their compoundings,
Adjective, noun, and adverb, and particle,
Deaf to even the definite article
No verbal message was worth a pin,
Though you hired an earwig to carry it in!
In short, she was twice as deaf as Deaf Burke,
Or all the deafness in Yearsley's Work,
Who, in spite of his skill in hardness of hearing, Boring, blasting, and pioneering,
To give the dunny organ a clearing,
Could never have cured Dame Eleanor Spearing,
Of course the loss was a great privation,
For one of her sex whatever her station
And none the less that the dame had a turn
For making all families one concern,
And learning whatever there was to learn
In the prattling, tattling village of Tringham
As who wore silk? and who wore gingham?
And what the Atkins's shop might bring 'em?
How the Smiths contrived to live? and whether
The fourteen Murphys all pigged together?
The wages per week of the Weavers and Skinners,
And what they boiled for their Sunday dinners?
What plates the Bugsbys had on the shelf,
Crockery, china, wooden, or delf?
And if the parlor of Mrs. O'Grady
Had a wicked French print, or Death and the Lady? Did Snip and his wife continue to jangle?
Had Mrs. Wilkinson sold her mangle?
What liquor was drunk by Jones and Brown?
And the weekly score they ran up at the Crown?
If the cobbler could read, and believed in the Pope?
And how the Grubbs were off for soap?
If the Snobbs had furnished their room up stairs.
And how they managed for tables and chairs,
Beds, and other household affairs,
Iron, wooden, and Staffordshire wares;
And if they could muster a whole pair of bellows?
In fact she had much of the spirit that lies
Perdu in a notable set of Paul Prys,
By courtesy called Statistical Fellows
A prying, spying, inquisitive clan,
Who had gone upon much of the self-same plan,
Jotting the laboring class's riches;
And after poking in pot and pan,
And routing garments in want of stitches,
Have ascertained that a working man
Wears a pair and a quarter of average breeches!
But this, alas! from her loss of hearing,
Was all a sealed book to Dame Eleanor Spearing;
And often her tears would rise to their founts -
Supposing a little scandal at play
"Twixt Mrs. O'Fie and Mrs. Au Fait
That she could n't audit the gossips' accounts.
'Tis true, to her cottage still they came,
And ate her muffins just the same,
And drank the tea of the widowed dame,
And never swallowed a thimble the less
Of something the reader is left to guess,
For all the deafness of Mrs. S.,
Who saw them talk, and chuckle, and cough,
But to see and not share in the social flow,
She might as well have lived, you know,
In one of the houses in Owen's Row,
Near the New River Head, with its water cut off!
And yet the almond-oil she had tried,
And fifty infallible things beside,
Hot, and cold, and thick, and thin,
Dabbed, and dribbled, and squirted in :
But all remedies failed; and though some it was clear
(Like the brandy and salt
We now exalt)
Had made a noise in the public ear,
She was just as deaf as ever, poor dear.
And humming she did n't quite know what tune;
For nothing she heard but a sort of a whizz,
Which, unless the sound of a circulation,
Or of thoughts in the process of fabrication,
|