Sound & Sense, 2-82

Time for more instances of the homophone: a word pronounced the same as another but differing in meaning, whether spelled the same way or not, as heir and air.

1. gnatty (adj.): filled with those small flies that bite people and animals

2. natty (adj.): trimly neat and tidy

So Natty Bumppo, Cooper’s guy,

Could not avoid the gnat, the fly.

He roamed the woods—and we know why:

He found the paths and slew the deer—

And this went on from year to year—

Till he grew gnatty, toe to ear,

And looked less natty all the while—

That buckskin woodsman sort of style—

But never too macabre or vile.

But then he never more awoke—

Was this some kind of awful joke?—

Gnats ate him—deer just watched him croak.