From the News

Dated: September 1, 1915

The following very clever rhyme has been handed to the Herald by Rev. A.L. Geggie. It was written in the trenches by Jas. Dodd, who was at the time of enlistment the youngest elder of Rev. Mr. Geggie's Toronto church. He is with the Canadian Field Artillery.

On Active Service at the Front, July 27. This is the fly season. If you were here it would not be necessary to tell you that. Every kind of fly seems to be represented, but the familiar house fly seems to be the genus predominating. They fly into your mouth if you yawn. They drop, to your disgust, into your tea. Their pertinacity is maddening for nothing short of a hard and fatal swat will cause them to desist from buzzing in and out of your ears or round your nose. In fact the subject warrants me saddling Pegasus, and here is the result:

The Flies of Flanders

"Grouse" not to me of rations
That fail to come to hand,
Or parasites on troglodytes
In this war ridden land.
Such things as flooded trenches,
Or Teuton shot and shell,
We deprecate, but oh, we hate
The flies that give us hell.
They crowd into our dugouts,
As bees a hive congest,
And when we doze on us they close
To stulify our rest.
O'er jam and cheese and bully
They blaze a "germy" trail,
Whilst not a few end in the stew.
The entomological tale,
We swat them by battalions,
And fumigation try,
But as a joke they treat our smoke,
Refusing so to die.
For one whose life we shorten,
Whole hordes for vengeance burn.
With virile voice would we rejoice,
Could we the (word unintelligible) intern.
Last evening Fritz and Company
Sent over "gas" galore,
Then backed by Krupp, they followed up,
A thirst for British gore.
But, "muzzled" all, we blighted
Their super Borgian hope.
Nor did we sigh that ne'er a fly
Survived that German dope.
I wonder if the youthful
Perusers of The Star
Are awaiting flies to gain a prize
For victims in a jar?
If so, and they will promise
To "divi" up with me
Of flies deceased I'll send at least
A billion F.O.B.