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_! A BLOW UP. “Here we go up, up, up.”--THE LAY OF THE FIRST MINSTREL. Near Battle, Mr. Peter Baker Was Powder-maker, Not Alderman Flower’s flour,--the white that puffs And primes and loads heads bald, or gray, or chowder, Figgins and Higgins, Fippins, Filby,--Crowder, Not vile apothecary’s pounded stuffs, But something blacker, bloodier, and louder, Gun-powder! This stuff, as people know, is _semper_ _Eadem_; very hasty in its temper-- Like Honour that resents the gentlest taps, Mere semblances of blows, however slight; So powder fires, although you only p’rhaps Strike light. To make it therefore, is a ticklish business, And sometimes gives both head and heart a dizziness, For as all human flash and fancy minders, Frequenting fights and Powder-works well know, There seldom is a mill without a blow Sometimes upon the grinders. But then--the melancholy phrase to soften, Mr. B.’s mill _transpir’d_ so very often! And advertised--than all Price Currents louder, “Fragments look up--there is a rise in Powder,” So frequently, it caused the neighbours’ wonder,-- And certain people had the inhumanity To lay it all to Mr. Baker’s vanity, That he might have to say--“That was _my_ thunder!” One day--so goes the tale, Whether, with iron hoof, Not sparkle-proof Some ninny-hammer struck upon a nail,-- Whether some glow-worm of the Guy Faux stamp, Crept in the building, with Unsafety Lamp-- One day this mill that had by water ground,