Today's poem is nice example of Nash's art and craft, chosen to show that
he can be amusing even without resorting to typically Nashian 'tricks'
like invented words, strained rhymes and comically exaggerated and varied
line lengths[1]. The fish-in-a-barrel shot at the unfortunate breed of duck
hunters and the four-line form (ideally suited to laconic humour, as I've
noted on several occasions) are given that little extra fillip by the bonus
rhyme, making the reader (whether he realises it consciously or not) laugh
at the *sound* of the words as well as their sense. Try substituting "with
skill and pluck" in the third line to see what I mean - the poem immediately
loses a certain indefinable something.