Though my float goes so swimmingly on,
My bad luck never seems to diminish;
  It would seem that the Bream
    Must be scarce in the stream,
And the Chub, tho’ it’s chubby, be thinnish!

Not a Trout there can be in the place,
Not a Grayling or Rud worth the mention,
  And although at my hook
  With attention I look,
I can ne’er see my hook with a Tench on!

At a brandling once Gudgeon would gape,
But they seem upon different terms now;
  Have they taken advice
  Of the “Council of Nice,”
And rejected their “Diet of Worms,” now?

In vain my live minnow I spin,
Not a Pike seems to think it worth snatching;
  For the gut I have brought,
  I had better have bought
A good rope that was used to Jack-ketching!

Not a nibble has ruffled my cork,
It is vain in this river to search then;
  I may wait till it’s night,
  Without any bite
And at roost-time have never a Perch then!

No Roach can I meet with—­no Bleak,
Save what in the air is so sharp now;
  Not a Dace have I got,
  And I fear it is not
“Carpe diem,” a day for the Carp now!

Oh! there is not a one-pound prize
To be got in this fresh-water-lottery! 
  What then can I deem
  Of so fishless a stream
But that ’tis—­like St. Mary’s—­Ottery!

For an Eel I have learned how to try,
By a method of Walton’s own showing—­
  But a fisherman feels
  Little prospect of Eels,
In a path that’s devoted to towing!

I have tried all the water for miles,
Till I’m weary of dipping and casting,
  And hungry and faint—­
  Let the Fancy just paint
What it is, without Fish, to be Fasting!

And the rain drizzles down very fast,
While my dinner-time sounds from a far bell—­
  So, wet to the skin,
  I’ll e’en back to my inn,
Where at least I am sure of a Bar-bell!

ODE

TO THE ADVOCATES FOR THE REMOVAL OF SMITH-FIELD MARKET.

     “Sweeping our flocks and herds.”—­DOUGLAS.

  O Philanthropic men!—­
For this address I need not make apology—­
Who aim at clearing out the Smithfield pen,
And planting further off its vile Zoology—­
  Permit me thus to tell,
  I like your efforts well,
For routing that great nest of Hornithology!

Be not dismay’d, although repulsed at first,
And driven from their Horse, and Pig, and Lamb parts,
Charge on!—­you shall upon their hornworks burst,
And carry all their Bull-warks and their Ram-parts.

    Go on, ye wholesale drovers! 
And drive away the Smithfield flocks and herds! 
    As wild as Tartar-Curds,
That come so fat, and kicking, from their clovers;
Off with them all!—­those restive brutes, that vex
Our streets, and plunge, and lunge, and butt, and battle;
    And save the female sex
From being cow’d—­like Ioe—­by the cattle!