She was deaf as any tradesman's dummy,
Or as Pharaoh's mother's mother's mummy;
Whose organs, for fear of modern sceptics,
Were plugged with gums and antiseptics.

She was deaf as a nail--that you cannot hammer
A meaning into for all your clamour -
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