! ! Sonnet: On His Deafness

‘Speak up! No need to shout – I’m not t h a t deaf..! ’ -do I have any real right to complain if years of partial listening have brought now partial hearing in their fateful train? O Milton – isn’t it curious: the blind evoke our instant feelings of compassion; while deafness calls some idiot state to mind – evoking, far from pity – irritation! Those saintly mystics would just praise their God that He, to speed their simple saintliness, brings outer deafness, so that inner Word in cloistered silence brings a greater bliss.. So may I bear affliction in good part: and hear a greater, louder word in heart.