Pray, angling reader, was it ne'er your fate, When fish were biting to be short of bait? Have you ne'er roked about in terra-firma To find a grub, a chrysalis, a worm--or For e'en a grasshopper searched o'er a field Which would not e'en a caterpillar yield, While droves of perch, impatient to be hooked, Have vainly round for some temptation looked? Now, in such a position was poor Peter placed; He had flown to the river in very great haste. Still, although he had sought out a gravelly nook, But a pair of young gudgeons approached near his hook. In the space of an hour--so a trimmer he set; While he tried, though in vain, a few others to get. "There's a bite! there's a bite! see the reel how it turns!" He exclaimed, and his face with excitement fierce burns, "Ah, it now has stopt short! 'tis to pouch it," he thought; "Look! 'tis running again, and the fellow is caught!" But, alas! when he struck, to his grief and dismay He discovered, the jack had his bait torn away. "O how foolish," he said; "it was of me to throw That fine gudgeon away! I might guess 'twould be so. I detest using live bait, you're certain to lose them, For it seems the fish think they're put to amuse them, And away he will drag them, or into bits chews them-- Just avoiding the hook, which might stick in their teeth. Oh, their cunning it really surpasses belief! One would think they were brought up from birth as a thief. But I'll try trolling now, as they seem on the feed, They must swallow the hook if the bait they then heed. But vain his hope, though time away Skips fast; the fish admire delay, And scarce to him attention pay. Perchance, his want of skill they saw, And from destruction quick withdraw To where they may their lives insure. 'Tis but midday, yet darkness shrouds the sky, For clouds of blackness furiously roll by. The watery sun has fled, but not to rest-- Behind a cloud which overflows the West-- The distant thunder strikes the list'ning ear, And streams of lightning pour down far and near. Yet still dame Nature grasps the slippery rains, Who, struggling, long to scour the dusty plains.