Classic Poem

When I was young I used to wait
On master and give him the plate
And pass the bottle when he got dry,
And brush away the blue-tail fly.
Jimmy crack corn and I don't care,
Old massa's gone away.

And when he'd ride in the arternoon
I'd follow after with a hickory broom,
The pony being very shy,
When bitten by the blue-tail fly.

One day when ridin' round the farm
The flies so num'rous they did swarm
One chanced to bite him on the thigh,
The devil take the blue-tail fly.

The pony jump, he run, he pitch,
He threw my master in the ditch,
He died and the jury wondered why,
The verdict was the blue-tail fly.

We laid him under a 'simmon tree,
His epitaph was there to see,
Beneath this stone I'm forced to lie,
Victim of a blue-tail fly.

Ole massa's dead and gone to rest,
They say all things is for the best.
I never shall forget till the day I die
Old massa and the blue-tail fly.

The hornet gets in eyes and nose,
The skeeter bites you through your clothes,
The gallinipper flies up high,
But wusser yet, the blue-tail fly.