Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

-Bible (Old Testament)
Isaiah 35:5^7.

Jesus answered and said unto them,Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see:The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Matthew11:4^5.

And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

-Bible (NewTestament)
St Mark 7:37.

Theyare as venomous as the poison of a serpent: even like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ears; Which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer: charm he never so wisely.

-Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 58:4^5.

Megaphone diplomacy leads to a dialogue of the deaf.

-Howe, Baron
  Quoted in the Observer, 29 Sep.

A cricket tour in Australia would be a most delightful period in one's life if one was deaf.

-Larwood, Harold
  Body-line.

  What are we learning Frenchor thepianofor,Iwould like to know, if it is not to be sold to a man some day† We have to cringe, and manoeuvre, and grimace for a husbandöa husband who may be deaf orhavea hump if he is richöa husband that may attack you in delirium tremens to-day if he makes a devout act of contrition for it to-morrow.

-O'Brien,William
  When We Were Boys.

London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more.

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
  'Letter to Maria Gisborne', l.193^5.

   Our Adonais has drunk poisonöoh! What deaf and viperous murderer could crown Life's early cup with such a draught of woe?

-Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Adonais, stanza 36.

When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you'll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?

-Sorley, Charles Hamilton
Marlborough and Other Poems,'A Sonnet' (published1916).

: Do not let him touch you! It is not true That drunken men cannot beget, And if he touch he must beget And you must bear his murderer. Deaf! Both deaf!

-Yeats,W(illiam) B(utler)
OLD MAN1939  Purgatory.