Work record

To a Louse

Robert Burns

1786 · 18th Century · Poetry · English

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Abstract

Written: 1786; printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786
Setting: A Sunday service in the 1780s; A parish church in Ayrshire, Scotland
Author: Robert Burns
Country: Kingdom of Great Britain (Scotland, United Kingdom)
Language: Scots and English
Genre: Comic lyric address (satire)
Form: Eight six-line stanzas in the Burns stanza
Recommended: Grades 6–12 (Comic Scots poem; glossary needed.)

Background. Burns printed this humorous piece alongside his tender poem to a field mouse. Its bonnet is a Lunardi, a style named after the Italian aeronaut whose ascents over Edinburgh and Glasgow in 1785 caused a sensation.

Content. During the sermon the speaker watches a crawling insect scale a young woman's new hat. He rebukes it as an upstart that belongs among beggars, follows its progress to the crown of the bonnet, and imagines dosing it with strong powders. Then he pleads with Jenny to stop preening, since the congregation behind her has seen. He concludes by wishing that a higher power would let all people view themselves through their neighbours' eyes, which would cure pride of dress, bearing and piety.

Form. The clipped short lines of the six-line stanza land each joke; the closing couplet shifts from comedy to proverb.

Themes. Beneath the joke lies a serious claim about self-deception. The young woman's pride is harmless and the creature's progress is absurd, but the speaker's closing wish applies to every reader: we rarely know what others see in us. Burns lets the comedy do the moral work, and he includes religious display among the follies that clearer sight would cure.

For students. Excellent for middle school. Discuss satire, pride and Christ's saying about the speck and the log.

Main characters

The speaker: A worshipper seated behind the lady
Jenny: A fashionable young woman in a new bonnet
The louse: The insect he addresses

Summary

To a Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church, is a comic companion to To a Mouse, printed in the same Kilmarnock volume of 1786. The speaker sits in church behind a fine young lady named Jenny, who is wearing a fashionable gauze-and-lace bonnet of the kind called a Lunardi, after the balloonist whose ascents in Scotland were the rage. A louse is crawling up it. The speaker addresses the creature with mock outrage: how dare it set its foot on so fine a lady, when it should be living among beggars, where comb and bone never disturb its thick plantations? He watches it climb to the very topmost height of the bonnet and wishes he had some strong powder to kill it. He would not have been surprised to see it on an old wife's flannel cap or a ragged boy's waistcoat, but on Miss's fine Lunardi, never. In the seventh stanza he warns Jenny not to toss her head and show off her beauty, for she does not know what the creature is doing, and the people behind her are already winking and pointing. The final stanza draws the famous moral. If only some power would give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us, it would free us from many a blunder and foolish notion, and from airs in dress and walk, and even in devotion. The poem mocks vanity without cruelty and lands its point on the speaker and reader as well as on the lady: everyone carries something unseen that others notice. Its closing prayer has become one of the most quoted couplets in Scottish poetry, and it is a favourite for teaching both humour and humility.

Virtues in this work

Humility: The poem mocks vanity and prays for the self-knowledge that cures pride.
Prudence: Seeing ourselves truly would free us from many a blunder and foolish notion.

Plot or Argument

Stanzas 1-3: the intruder
The speaker scolds the louse for crawling on a fine lady and tells it to go to a beggar's head instead.
Stanzas 4-6: the climb
The louse reaches the top of the fashionable bonnet; the speaker wishes he could poison it and says it belongs on poorer heads.
Stanza 7: warning to Jenny
He begs the lady not to toss her head, because people behind her are noticing.
Stanza 8: the moral
If only we could see ourselves as others see us, we would be freed from blunders and vanity, even in worship.

Characters

The speaker, churchgoer
A wry observer sitting behind the lady during the service.
Jenny, the lady
A young woman proud of her fashionable bonnet, unaware of the louse.
The louse, addressee
The insect climbing her bonnet.

Lessons

Seeing ourselves
The closing lines pray for the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us. Self-knowledge is the cure for many follies.
- What blunders would the gift free us from?
- Why is the moral addressed to us, not only to Jenny?
- How does Jesus's saying about the speck and the log apply?
Related across the library
- St. Patrick's Writings, Lesson: Captivity can become vocation without becoming harmless
  Captivity can become vocation without becoming harmless. Patrick interprets enslavement as the setting of conversion, but the Letter to Coroticus shows that he does not romanticize captivity. He can find providence in his own suffering and still condemn slave-raiding as a Christian scandal.
- The Commonwealth of Oceana, Lesson: Rotation keeps office from becoming property
  Rotation keeps office from becoming property. Harrington requires that a third of every elected body leave office each year and that officers wait before being chosen again. Rotation, with the secret ballot, keeps a constant flow of new citizens into government and prevents any group from making office its possession.
- Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, To a Louse, stanza 8 (1786)
  O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us The prayer for self-knowledge.
- The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, Lesson: Hope without a formula
  Hope without a formula. The ending rejects a guaranteed method of earthly contentment. That rejection need not mean that duty, affection, or hope are worthless.
- New Atlantis, Arrival at Bensalem, before landing
  The dignitary keeps his distance on the warning of the city's Conservator of Health because the ship reports many sick; a notary carries a scarlet-orange fruit as a preservative against infection.
Vanity in church
The setting matters: the lady's pride appears in the place of worship, and the poem ends with airs even in devotion.
- Why does Burns set the poem in church?
- What would airs in devotion look like?
- Compare 1 Peter 3:3-4.
Related across the library
- A Tale of Two Cities, Book 2, Chapter XXIV: Drawn to the Loadstone Rock
  was seized not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint Antoine s bosom CHAPTER XXIII Fire Rises There was a change on the village where the fountain fell and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together The prison on the crag was not so dominant as of yore there were soldiers to guard it but not many there were officers to guard the soldiers bu...
- The Conquest of Gaul, Lesson: The third person as a weapon of persuasion
  The third person as a weapon of persuasion. Caesar never says 'I'. By narrating himself as 'Caesar', he makes self-interested reports look like neutral record, and the restraint of the style becomes evidence of the author's reliability. The Commentaries teach readers to notice how plainness can be the most effective rhetoric.
- The Golden Ass, Lesson: Salvation may be sincere and comic
  Salvation may be sincere and comic. The Isiac ending offers real deliverance but keeps traces of satire and cost. Apuleius refuses a purely simple conversion story.
- A Confession, Chapter II
  set of authors I had come among and these views completely obliterated all my former strivings to improve they furnished a theory which justified the dissoluteness of my life The view of life of these people my comrades in authorship consisted in this that life in general goes on developing and in this development we men of thought have the chief part and among men of thought it is we artists and poets who have the greatest influence Our vocation is to teach mankind And lest the simple question should suggest it...
- A Tale of Two Cities, Book II, Chapter 14
  Jerry Cruncher goes fishing by night in a churchyard; his son learns that he is a resurrection-man.
Comic satire
Burns mocks without hatred. The mock-heroic address to a louse makes pride look small.
- What is funny about scolding an insect?
- Does the speaker look foolish too?
- Is gentle satire kinder than direct rebuke?
Related across the library
- Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, Lesson: Satire and sincerity
  Satire and sincerity. Holy Willie's Prayer mocks a self-righteous elder who prays for his neighbours' ruin, while The Cotter's Saturday Night honours real piety. Burns attacks false religion more than faith itself.
- Main Street, Lesson: Satire and fairness
  Satire and fairness. Lewis mocks the town but also shows Carol's faults. Students can weigh both.
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Lesson: Satire of privilege
  Satire of privilege. Twain mocks inherited rank and blind loyalty.
- SEC v. W. J. Howey Co., Dissent of Justice Frankfurter
  'Investment contract' is not a term of art; it is conception dependent upon the circumstances of a particular situation. Justice Frankfurter opens his dissent by treating the question as one of fact for the trial court.
- The Nose, Lesson: Satire through the absurd
  Satire through the absurd. Gogol never explains how the nose escaped; instead every character reacts to the impossible with ordinary bureaucratic fussiness. The joke exposes the habits of a society more concerned with procedure and reputation than with truth.

Context

Vincenzo Lunardi's balloon flights over Scotland in 1785 made balloon-shaped bonnets fashionable. Kirk attendance was expected of everyone, and seating often reflected social rank.

Composition

Written in 1786 and included in the Kilmarnock edition that year.

Reception

The final couplet is among the most quoted lines in Scots and is often used in discussions of self-awareness.

Satire Folly Identity Self Class / Society Faith / Religion Animals

Comparisons

To a Mouse
Companion address to a small creature in the same volume, tender rather than comic.
The Cotter’s Saturday Night
A contrasting picture of sincere worship from the same volume.
Gulliver's Travels
Swift also uses small creatures and shifts of scale to humble human pride.

Quotes

Frequently cited

“O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us”

— Robert Burns, To a Louse, Stanza 8 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, To a Louse, stanza 8 (1786)
O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us The prayer for self-knowledge.
Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII, Phaedrus 279b–c
Beloved Pan, and all ye other gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one Socrates' closing prayer before leaving the riverside, asking for harmony between inner and outer self.
The Jungle Book, The White Seal
I am the only white seal that has ever been born on the beaches, and I am the only seal, black or white, who ever thought of looking for new islands. Encouraged by a dying old seal, Kotick resolves to keep searching for a safe home for his people.
She Walks in Beauty, Stanza 3
A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent! The closing praise of her character.
A Treatise on the Smallpox and Measles, Chapter XIV, §13
and to HIM Who hath given us understanding to accomplish the work be praise and glory without end, even as HE is most worthy and deserving thereof. The closing words of the treatise.

“It wad frae mony a blunder free us, An’ foolish notion”

— Robert Burns, To a Louse, Stanza 8 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

Gideon v. Wainwright, Lesson: One prisoner's petition
One prisoner's petition. Gideon wrote his petition in pencil on prison paper. The Court accepted it, appointed one of the best lawyers in Washington for him, and changed the law of every state. The case shows how the ordinary process of petition can bring a large question before the highest court.
The Praise of Folly, Opening of the oration
Be it as foolish as they would make it, so they confess it proper: and what can be more than that Folly be her own trumpet Folly justifies praising herself, setting up the paradoxical encomium in which a worthless subject is lavishly honoured.
The Dream of the Rood, Line 118
Who bears in his breast the best of beacons; At the judgment, the one who carries the cross inwardly need not fear.
Physics and Philosophy, Lesson: The limits of language
The limits of language. The concepts of classical physics and ordinary speech were formed for everyday experience, and they fit the atomic world only partly. Yet Heisenberg insists that experiments must be described in those concepts, and that plain language remains the test of understanding. Science must speak clearly while knowing its words are approximate.
Memoirs of Usama ibn Munqidh, Section I, ch. 9
A man faints at gushing blood, another at bloodletting; a man saws his own leg; a dropsy case relieved by a wound to the abdomen.

“Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie”

— Robert Burns, To a Louse, Stanza 1 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book XVI, Chapter v
why, I could act as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen a ghost, I should have looked in the very same manner, and done just as he did After seeing Garrick play Hamlet, Partridge scorns the performance as no acting at all, the novel's best joke about art and nature.
The War of the Worlds, Lesson: Two ways of breaking down
Two ways of breaking down. The curate and the artilleryman respond to catastrophe in opposite ways. The curate collapses into lament and blame, asking what sins Weybridge has done; the artilleryman makes bold plans for a new human order underground but does almost nothing. The narrator, frightened and sometimes harsh, keeps observing and acting, and the book asks the reader to judge all three.
Emma, Vol. I, Ch. XII-XIII
Isabella and her father compare their medical men, Mr. Wingfield and Mr. Perry, and the merits of South End and Cromer for sea-bathing; Harriet's feverish sore throat makes Mr. Elton fear a putrid infection.
Carmilla, Chapters XV-XVI
Two medical men attest to breathing and heartbeat in the exhumed body; Vordenburg explains that a suicide may become a vampire and that the vampire's strength sustains itself on living blood.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Vol. I, Ch. 7
so long as a man rides his HOBBY-HORSE peaceably and quietly along the King’s highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him,—pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it? Tristram defends the harmless enthusiasms of the wise and foolish alike before introducing his family's hobby-horses.

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The mock-solemn tone of the speaker scolding an insect.
The class jokes about where the louse belongs.
The word Lunardi and the fashion it names.
The sudden turn to Jenny and then to all of us in the last two stanzas.

Key terms and names

Lunardi: A balloon-shaped bonnet named after the Italian balloonist Vincenzo Lunardi.
Mock-heroic: Treating a trivial subject in grand style to produce comedy.
Giftie: Scots diminutive of gift: a little gift.
Scots: The speaker scolds the louse in church in Scots, calling it a 'crowlin ferlie' (crawling wonder) and a 'blastit wonner' (blasted marvel); the closing prayer 'O wad some Power the giftie gie us' (would some Power give us the gift) keeps the moral in the same plain spoken tongue.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension Where is the speaker, and what does he see?
Comprehension Where does he say the louse should live instead?
Interpretation Why does he warn Jenny not to toss her head?
Interpretation What does the final stanza add to the joke?
Interpretation Why does he include devotion in the list of things affected by airs?
Big Question Can we ever see ourselves as others see us, and should we try?

Faith Connections

Matthew 7:3-5 (Scripture)
Jesus tells us to remove the log from our own eye; Burns's closing prayer asks for that kind of sight.
1 Peter 3:3-4 (Scripture)
True adornment is the hidden person of the heart, not fine apparel or braided hair.
Psalm 139:23-24 (Scripture)
Search me, O God: the psalmist asks God himself for the self-knowledge Burns wishes for.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The proud lady cannot see the louse that everyone behind her sees; so all people are blind to what others notice; therefore self-knowledge would free us from vanity in dress and even in worship.

Rhetorical device: mock-heroic apostrophe. The speaker addresses the louse as ye crowlin ferlie and scolds its impudence as if it were a social climber.

Debate: Resolved: that seeing ourselves as others see us would make us better people.

Memory Work

O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us
Stanza 8. One of the most quoted couplets in Scots poetry, and a lifelong lesson in humility.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Show how Burns uses comedy to teach a moral, and whether the speaker himself escapes the moral.

Comparison with To a Mouse: Compare the two addresses to small creatures: what does each creature teach the speaker?

Creative Prompts

Classroom
Act out the scene silently while one student reads the poem aloud.
Poetry
Write a short mock-heroic address to an insect or pest that interrupts a solemn occasion.
Essay
Explain how the final stanza turns a joke about a lady into a lesson for everyone.