To a Mouse

Summary

To a Mouse, subtitled On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November 1785, is one of the short poems in Scots that Robert Burns wrote while farming Mossgiel with his brother Gilbert. It appeared in the Kilmarnock volume of 1786. The speaker, a ploughman, has just broken open the winter nest of a field mouse, and he speaks to the frightened creature directly. He assures her that he will not chase her with the plough-staff, and he apologises for the way man's dominion has broken nature's social union, so that the mouse is right to fear him, though he is her earth-born companion and fellow-mortal. He grants that she may steal a few ears of grain, and says he will never miss them. Then he looks at the ruined nest: the little house of leaves and stubble, built against the coming of bleak December, has been torn open by the coulter, and she is turned out into sleet and frost. In the seventh stanza the poem widens. The mouse is not alone in finding that foresight may be vain: the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go astray and leave grief and pain instead of promised joy. The last stanza turns the comparison against the speaker. The mouse is blessed compared with him, because only the present touches her; he looks back on drear prospects and forward with guesses and fears. The poem is written in the six-line stanza now called the Burns stanza or standard Habbie, with its short fourth and sixth lines. It joins tenderness toward a small animal with a sober look at human mortality, and its proverbial line gave John Steinbeck the title Of Mice and Men.

Plot or Argument

• Stanzas 1-2: the apology

  The ploughman calms the panicked mouse and apologises for man's dominion, which has broken the fellowship between people and other creatures.

• Stanzas 3-6: the ruined house

  He forgives her small thefts of grain and describes the nest of leaves and stubble destroyed by the plough just as winter arrives.

• Stanza 7: the proverb

  The best-laid schemes of mice and men go astray; the mouse's plight becomes a picture of every human plan.

• Stanza 8: the turn to self

  The speaker envies the mouse, who lives only in the present, while he looks back with regret and forward with fear.

Characters

• The ploughman, speaker

  A young farmer who has just ploughed up the nest; Burns himself at Mossgiel in the poem's fiction.

• The mouse, addressee

  A frightened field mouse whose winter shelter has been destroyed.

Lessons

• Dominion and kindness

  The speaker accepts that man rules the fields, yet he is sorry that his rule makes the creature afraid. The poem asks what a kind and responsible dominion looks like.

  • Why does the speaker apologise to the mouse?
  • What does he mean by nature's social union?
  • How does Genesis 1-2 describe man's rule over animals?

• Plans and providence

  The famous seventh stanza says our best plans often go astray. Students can test the proverb against Scripture's teaching that we plan our way but the Lord directs our steps.

  • Is the line about schemes a complaint, a warning or a comfort?
  • How would James 4:13-15 answer the speaker?
  • Tell of a plan of yours that went agley.

• Fear of the future

  The last stanza says the mouse is blessed because only the present touches her. The poem honestly names the human habit of regret and anxiety.

  • Why does the speaker envy the mouse?
  • Is he right that the present only touches animals?
  • Compare Matthew 6:34.

Context

Burns was twenty-six and farming the unprofitable farm of Mossgiel near Mauchline when he wrote the poem. His brother Gilbert later recalled that it was composed while Robert was holding the plough. Scottish farming was changing fast, and many small tenants were losing their holdings.

Composition

Written in November 1785 and printed in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect (Kilmarnock, 1786), the volume that made Burns famous.

Reception

The poem became one of Burns's best-loved pieces; its seventh stanza entered the language as a proverb and gave Steinbeck the title Of Mice and Men (1937).

Comparisons

• Of Mice and Men

  Steinbeck took his title from the seventh stanza; his ranch hands' dream farm is a best-laid scheme that goes astray.

• To a Louse

  Burns's companion poem to a small creature, comic rather than tender, from the same volume.

• The Tyger

  Blake also addresses a creature directly, but asks about its Maker rather than about human dominion.

Quotes

For Students

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

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The direct address to the mouse in the first line and the shift to the ploughman's apology in stanza 2.
• Scots words such as sleekit, cow'rin, agley and cranreuch; say them aloud.
• How the ruined nest in stanzas 4-6 is described like a human house.
• The turn from the mouse to the speaker himself in the last stanza.

Key terms and names

Scots

The Ayrshire speech Burns gives his ploughman: words such as brattle, pattle, thole, and cranreuch are Scots, while the grammar stays near enough to English that reading the stanzas aloud makes most of them plain.

Burns stanza

Six lines rhymed aaabab with short fourth and sixth lines; also called standard Habbie.

Coulter

The iron blade at the front of a plough that cuts the soil; it destroys the nest.

Agley

Scots for askew or astray, as in plans that gang aft agley.

Dominion

Rule or lordship; here man's rule over the creatures and the land.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What has the speaker just done, and in what month?
2. Comprehension What does he say he will not do to the mouse in stanza 1?
3. Interpretation Why does he call the mouse his fellow-mortal?
4. Interpretation How does stanza 7 change the poem from an apology into a reflection?
5. Interpretation Why does the speaker think the mouse is better off than he is?
6. Big Question What does a right kind of dominion over creation look like?

Faith Connections

• Genesis 1:28; 2:15 (Scripture)

  Man is given dominion and told to tend and keep the garden. The speaker feels the gap between that charge and the fear his plough causes.

• Proverbs 16:9 (Scripture)

  Solomon sets every human plan under the Lord who orders our steps. Burns’s ploughman sees the same frailty in the mouse’s nest and his own hopes, yet names no hand behind the ruin; ask what the stanza gains and lacks by that silence.

• Matthew 6:26, 34 (Scripture)

  Jesus points to the birds who do not store in barns and tells his hearers not to be anxious about tomorrow; compare the speaker's backward and forward fears.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Human dominion has made the mouse fear the ploughman, though both are fellow creatures; the destruction of her careful winter house shows that foresight may be vain for all creatures; and the speaker is worse off than the mouse because he alone suffers regret and dread.

Rhetorical device: apostrophe. The whole poem is spoken to the mouse, from Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie to the last stanza's Still thou art blest.

Debate: Resolved: that the speaker of To a Mouse shows the right attitude toward animals for a Christian farmer.

Memory Work

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion, Has broken nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle

Writing Prompts

Essay: Trace how the poem moves from the mouse to all mice and men and finally to the speaker himself, and explain what each step adds.

Comparison with Of Mice and Men: Explain how Steinbeck's novel enacts the seventh stanza of Burns's poem, and whether his ending shares Burns's tenderness.

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Make a two-column glossary of ten Scots words in the poem, then read it aloud as a class with the English beside it.

• Poetry

  Write two stanzas in the Burns stanza (aaabab) addressed to a small creature you disturbed by accident.

• Essay

  Is the seventh stanza a proverb of despair or of humility? Argue from the whole poem.

Further Reading

• Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Robert Burns

  The Kilmarnock volume of 1786.

• Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

  Takes its title from the poem.

• Essay on Burns, Thomas Carlyle

  Victorian estimate of Burns; in this library.