Zachary Zye, the loud­-buzzing black fly,
Zipped into the house in the blink of an eye.

Inside he discovered Old Man Ebenezer
Noisily snoozing, the crusty old geezer,
With his head on the bed and his feet in the freezer.

Now one thing is true of a fly with a buzz:
If that fly sees you sleeping, the first thing he does
Is to buzz in your ear. Why is that? Well… because.

So Zachary flew to the old geezer’s bed
Landed once on his chin—circled twice ‘round his head—
And then BUZZED IN HIS EAR! fit to wake up the dead.

But Old Man Ebenezer kept snoring instead.

An insult like that would make any fly sore.
I’ll wake him! cried Zachary Zye with a roar.
(If you heard it, you might think his roar was a buzz
And to tell you the truth, I suppose that it was.)

He buzzed on the old geezer’s feet (they were smelly)
And the back of his neck and the front of his belly.
He buzzed in his nose and he buzzed in his hair
He buzzed around here, and he even buzzed there.

He buzzed every place he could think of, and more.
He buzzed and he buzzed till his buzzer was sore.
But Old Man Ebenezer just lay there ­­ and snored.

So Zachary Zye, the loud-­buzzing black fly,
Zipped out of the house… with a tear in his eye.

Fly, woodcut engraving; illustration to Pierre Mégnin, La faune des cadavers; application de l’entomologie à la médecine légale (1894).