March Flies

Now comes the time when we douse flies With various kinds of sprays - The sand flies, and the house flies, And the flies with furtive ways. But I keep my hate for the large flies That come for the tree-lined creek - Those arch flies, the March flies With a crosscut saw for a beak. Now, most flies rouse in the autumn From the summer's drowsy daze, And they bite as nature taught 'em, In various styles and ways. They nip, or they stab or they burrow; But the fly that knocks me out Is the March fly, with the dull, dead eye And a crosscut saw for a snout. Now the house flies come to the table Or busily play on the pane; And our rage and heat they calmly treat With the uttermost disdain. And the buzz-flies buzz and blunder, And the sandflies dig right in; But my whole soul shrinks when the March fly sinks His crosscut under my skin. He's a sneak and an arrant coward, And the lowest of low-down cows, By nature ghoulishly dowered With a weapon no law allows. And it isn't the pain he gives me Nor the blood he may chance to draw, It's the loathsome way that he makes foul play With his really terrible, Most unbearable, Horrible crosscut saw.