The Full Text of “To a Mouse”
On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785
1Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
2O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
3Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
4 Wi’ bickerin brattle!
5I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
6 Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
7I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
8Has broken Nature’s social union,
9An’ justifies that ill opinion,
10 Which makes thee startle,
11At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
12 An’ fellow-mortal!
13I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
14What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
15A daimen-icker in a thrave
16 ’S a sma’ request:
17I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
18 An’ never miss ’t!
19Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
20It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
21An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
22 O’ foggage green!
23An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
24 Baith snell an’ keen!
25Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
26An’ weary Winter comin fast,
27An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
28 Thou thought to dwell,
29Till crash! the cruel coulter past
30 Out thro’ thy cell.
31That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
32Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
33Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
34 But house or hald,
35To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
36 An’ cranreuch cauld!
37But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
38In proving foresight may be vain:
39The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
40 Gang aft agley,
41An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
42 For promis’d joy!
43Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
44The present only toucheth thee:
45But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
46 On prospects drear!
47An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
48 I guess an’ fear!
The Full Text of “To a Mouse”
On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785
1Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
2O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
3Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
4 Wi’ bickerin brattle!
5I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
6 Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
7I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
8Has broken Nature’s social union,
9An’ justifies that ill opinion,
10 Which makes thee startle,
11At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
12 An’ fellow-mortal!
13I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
14What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
15A daimen-icker in a thrave
16 ’S a sma’ request:
17I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
18 An’ never miss ’t!
19Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
20It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
21An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
22 O’ foggage green!
23An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
24 Baith snell an’ keen!
25Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
26An’ weary Winter comin fast,
27An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
28 Thou thought to dwell,
29Till crash! the cruel coulter past
30 Out thro’ thy cell.
31That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
32Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
33Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
34 But house or hald,
35To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
36 An’ cranreuch cauld!
37But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
38In proving foresight may be vain:
39The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
40 Gang aft agley,
41An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
42 For promis’d joy!
43Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
44The present only toucheth thee:
45But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
46 On prospects drear!
47An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
48 I guess an’ fear!
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“To a Mouse” Introduction
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"To a Mouse" was written in 1785 by Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns. After accidentally destroyed a mouse’s nest with his plough, the poem's speaker expresses sorrow for the animal’s plight. The mouses's homelessness and hunger prompt the speaker to feel compassion for all vulnerable creatures and also to reflect on the unpredictability and pain of human life. "To a Mouse" features Burns’s characteristic use of Scottish dialect and a six-line stanza form known as the habbie or Burns stanza.
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“To a Mouse” Summary
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It is November of 1785, and the speaker has just accidentally destroyed a mouse’s nest with his plough.
The speaker addresses the mouse as a small, sleek, huddled, frightened little animal and notices how scared she is. He tells her that she doesn’t need to try and scurry away in such a rush—he has no desire to chase and attack her with a deadly plough-scraper.
He also tells her that he is sorry that humankind has come to dominate the earth and its creatures and has ruined the harmony that naturally ought to exist between people and animals. This domination makes it understandable that the mouse would be frightened of the speaker, even though he is a needy, vulnerable creature just as the mouse is.
The speaker knows that the mouse sometimes steals food from his stores, but asks whether that should matter—the poor mouse has to stay alive after all! The occasional ear of corn from a large bundle is a small thing to ask. The speaker counts himself lucky to have what is left over and will never suffer because of what the mouse takes.
Then the speaker turns his attention to the mouse’s little nest, which is destroyed; its weak walls are being blown around by the wind. Unfortunately, there is no more grass left for the mouse to use to build a new nest, for the biting, bitter December winds are already starting to blow, meaning that winter is coming.
The mouse, the speaker sees, realized that the fields were empty and that the dangerous season of winter was approaching, and had hoped to live comfortably in its nest, sheltered from the winds—until the destructive plough crashed right through its home.
The speaker reflects that the tiny dwelling made of leaves and shorn plants took a great deal of exhausting effort for the mouse to build. Now, after all that work, the mouse is left without any home to shelter it through the winter’s sleet, rain, and frost.
But the mouse is not the only creature to realize that planning for the future can sometimes prove to be useless. Even the most carefully made plans, created by animals or by humans alike, often go wrong. When that happens, the planner experiences sorrow and distress instead of the happiness he expected.
The mouse is lucky, however, compared to the speaker. The mouse is affected only by the present moment. But, the speaker exclaims, he can look back into the past at painful memories. He can also look forward into the future and, although he cannot know for certain it will bring, he can anticipate and be afraid of what might happen.
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“To a Mouse” Themes
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The Relationship Between People and Animals
After the poem's speaker accidentally destroys a mouse’s nest with a plough, he considers the relationship between human beings and animals. The two are connected, the speaker argues, in that they are both parts of the natural world and are ultimately vulnerable to forces beyond their control. All creatures are subject to the whims of a harsh and unpredictable world, and, as such, the poem implies that human beings would do well to show compassion to their fellow creatures—even those as small as mice. At the same time, however, the speaker upholds one major difference between people and animals: unlike other creatures, human beings are uniquely—and painfully—aware of their present and future suffering, while other animals live only, ignorantly, in the moment.
Referring to “Nature’s social union,” the speaker implies that humans and animals are both part of nature and that this creates a special bond between them. More specifically, humans and animals are both “poor” and “mortal.” That is, they have physical needs they cannot always meet, and they are vulnerable to injury and death. This is why the speaker calls himself the mouse’s “fellow-mortal.”
On a similar note, both animals and human beings can suffer from homelessness and hunger. The speaker, after accidentally destroying the mouse’s nest, reflects on the pain the mouse will have to endure now that her nest has been destroyed: the “winter’s sleety dribble, / An’ cranreuch cauld,” the winter’s cold sleet and frost. But note how he refers to the mouse’s plight in human terms. He calls the mouse’s nest a “cell,” a “house,” and a “hald”—words used for human habitations. It is as if the speaker is imagining homeless humans suffering in the cold as well as the homeless mouse.
Ultimately, then, the mouse’s plight leads the speaker to consider how all creatures, humans and animals—“mice an’ men” alike—suffer “grief an’ pain” in an unpredictable world where their plans and “schemes” often fail. In describing this pain, he even refers to “us”—as though humans and animals are members of a single group, united by their vulnerability.
The speaker’s perception of this common bond of suffering thus leads him to show sympathy and compassion for the mouse and, by implication, for all living creatures. The mouse may “thieve,” but this doesn’t anger the speaker because the mouse “maun live.” Essentially, the mouse has to eat to survive, just like every other creature, and the speaker respects the mouse’s right to survive. Rather than killing the mouse with “murd’ring prattle,” he’s willing to grant the mouse its “sma’ request” of food. He even believes he’d be “bless[ed]” if he shared his food with the mouse—implying that God intended humans to show compassion towards animals.
To that end, the speaker also regrets “man’s dominion,” the way humans wield power over animals and, in doing so, violate “Nature’s social union.” This union connects not just the speaker and the mouse but everything in nature. The speaker, feeling “truly sorry” at this violation, implies that humans should extend sympathy to all living things.
Of course, all that said, the speaker does note that humans can experience mental and emotional pain that animals cannot. In the last stanza, the speaker says that animals are affected by the “present only.” They are mostly absorbed in their immediate physical experiences. Human beings, by contrast, can look “backward” into the past and be troubled by “prospects drear,” or painful memories. They can also “guess” at the future and suffer “fear” about what may come. Thanks to their memories and imaginations, humans experience mental and emotional suffering that animals do not.
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The Unpredictability of Life
The most famous line of "To a Mouse" is this: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” In other words, the most carefully arranged plans of both people and animals often go wrong. And, the poem suggests, because it is impossible to know what the future will bring, it is impossible to control it; however well creatures may plan, they will always encounter some sorrow and pain. The best a person can do in coping with this unpredictability, the poem implies, is to focus on the present moment and extend compassion to others. But the tragic truth the poem insists upon is that life is often tragically unpredictable.
The destruction of the mouse’s nest reveals "that foresight may be vain." The mouse had tried to plan ahead for her future needs, but now her plan has proven futile. She had “thought to dwell” in its nest “cozie … beneath the blast” of the winter winds, but, now that her nest is ruined, she will have to suffer the sleet and frost of “winter’s sleety dribble / An’ cranreuch cauld.” The mouse’s situation illustrates the general way that life’s unpredictability ruins the “promis’d joy” that creatures hope and plan for and often leaves them with nothing but “grief an’ pain.”
The speaker’s actions and attitudes hint at ways of coping with this tragic fact of life, but he still implies that tragedy, in an unpredictable world, is pretty much inescapable. As such, the speaker adds that the mouse is “blest” in one way: it is affected by the “present only.” The mouse has a limited ability to imagine what pain the future will bring. She can suffer physical pain in the immediate moment, but cannot suffer the mental pain of anticipation and fear.
Human beings, on the other hand, struggle to live in the present. When the speaker looks “backward” at the past, he finds painful memories and “prospects drear.” And when he looks “forward” into the future, he says, “tho’ I canna see, / I guess an’ fear!” In other words, part of the speaker's anxiety comes from the fact that he cannot see or know what is going to happen. It can then be helpful, the reader might infer, to avoid guessing at the future too much in order to avoid the “fear” that comes with awareness of life's unpredictability.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “To a Mouse”
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Before Line 1, Lines 1-6
On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!The first stanza establishes the poem’s scenario and the attitude of the speaker towards the mouse. As the poem's subtitle indicates, the speaker has just destroyed the mouse’s nest with his plough. The speaker addresses the mouse in humorous, good-natured terms, as a "Wee" ("little") "sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie." The use of the affectionate "wee" as well as the diminutive terms “beastie” and “breastie” suggest that the speaker might be laughing a bit at the mouse. So does his exclamation "O" in line 2, as if he is treating the tiny animal with mock seriousness. But the reader quickly sees that the laughter is kind rather than malicious.
The speaker exclaims at the mouse's "panic" but quickly reassures her that she need not "start awa sae hasty," or run away so quickly, for he has no wish to "chase [her] / Wi' murd'ring pattle!" The speaker destroyed the mouse's nest only by accident, not on purpose. He has no wish to harm her. He is laughing at her because her panic is unnecessary, not because he finds any cruel pleasure in the animal's fright or his power over her.
The fact that the speaker is addressing his words to the mouse establish the poem's anthropomorphism. The speaker speaks to the mouse as though she can understand him. He also imagines the thoughts and feelings she is having, thoughts and feelings similar to those a human being would have. These actions imply that the speaker sees the mouse, in some sense, as being similar to a person or even on par with one in terms of how he ought to treat her. This implication will be further developed as one of the most important themes of the poem.
The colloquial language, vowel sounds, and rhymes add to the tone of gentle good humor in this first stanza. The lines are dominated by Scottish dialect, including archaic speech forms (thy, thou), variants on standard English words ("awa" for "away," "sae" for "so"), and Scottish words ("bickerin brattle"). The dialect shows the speaker addressing the mouse in casual, familiar terms.
The opening also lines repeat the long /ee/ sound (assonance) in "Wee," "sleeket," "beastie," "breastie," "need," "hasty," and "thee." Rhyming words and sounds can (though do not necessarily) add a comic sense to verse, especially when the rhymes are very frequent. Similarly, feminine line endings (that is, final, unstressed beats) can add a sense of humor or lightness, by avoiding the sense of seriousness and gravity that comes with ending the line on a stressed syllable. Lines 1-4 scan like this:
Wee, slee- | ket, cow- | ran, tim’- | rous beastie,
O, what | a pan- | ic’s in | thy breastie!
Thou need | na start | awa | sae hasty,
Wi’ bick- | erin brattle!Altogether, the speaker's attitude toward the mouse and the sound of his words begin the poem on a gentle, humorous note.
The opening lines also introduces the poem's stanza form, meter, and rhyme scheme. The poem is written in six-line stanzas (sestets) that rhyme AAABAB. The A lines are written in iambic tetrameter (meaning they have four iambs—feet with an unstressed-stressed beat pattern—per line), while the B lines are written in iambic dimeter (meaning they have two iambs her line). This form is known as the habbie stanza or the Burns stanza (for more on this, see "Form").
There are variations on the iambic meter throughout the poem. Lines that, like lines 1-6, have feminine endings have an extra unstressed syllable at the end of the line. Some lines also begin with a stressed syllable. In line 1, the unusual stress on the first syllable calls extra attention to the word "wee," emphasizing the mouse's small size and the speaker's kindly attitude towards the small, helpless animal. The speaker's sympathy for the mouse will continue throughout the poem, but the tone will shift from the lightness and humor here to something more serious in the next stanza.
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Lines 7-12
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal! -
Lines 13-18
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss ’t! -
Lines 19-24
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen! -
Lines 25-30
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary Winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell. -
Lines 31-36
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld! -
Lines 37-42
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy! -
Lines 43-48
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But Och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
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“To a Mouse” Symbols
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The Mouse
The speaker meditates extensively on the plight of the mouse, who is homeless now that her nest has been destroyed. The speaker ultimately takes the mouse's plight to represent the condition of all creatures—"Mice an' men"—living in a world where tragedy can strike suddenly and unpredictably. The mouse, then, symbolizes for the speaker not just her own condition but the condition of human beings, too.
In Burns's day, many poorer farmers were being "turn'd out" from their houses or lands as wealthy landowners enclosed public land and changed their farming practices (see "Context"). The words the speaker uses to describe the mouse's home shift from "nest," "housie," and "wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble" to "house" and "hald." These terms are more usually used to describe human habitations, which suggests that the speaker is thinking about the mouse and human beings at the same time. The mouse comes to symbolize all humans who suffer homelessness and suffer tragedy more generally in an unpredictable world.
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The Destruction of the Nest
The starting point for the poem is the speaker's "[t]urning up" in the mouse's nest with his plough and accidentally destroying it. This event starts off as a simple encounter between one creature and another, but the speaker soon reveals that he sees this encounter as symbolic of something much larger. He tells the mouse, "I'm truly sorry Man's dominion / Has broken Nature's social union."
The word "dominion" suggests that the speaker is referring to God's commandment in the biblical book of Genesis (see "Poetic Devices: Allusions") giving humans dominion over all the earth's creatures. According to Christian tradition, humans originally lived in peaceful harmony with their fellow creatures. Once humans committed sin, however, their sinfulness led them to abuse their power over the animals and dominate over them more cruelly.
The speaker didn't mean to destroy the mouse's nest and he certainly isn't cruel to the creature. But he still sees the destruction of the nest as symbolic of the broken relationship between "Man" and "Nature," between all humans and all animals. The mouse is aware that most humans treat animals cruelly, and that is why her "ill opinion" of the speaker is "justifie[d]" even though he himself is not cruel. The nest's destruction is one more event in this troubled history of human-animal relations, and it symbolizes that whole history.
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“To a Mouse” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Anthropomorphism
The whole poem is built around the device of anthropomorphism. The poem is an address, as the title states, to a mouse, as if she can understand the speaker's words to her. The speaker also attributes human traits to the mouse. First of all, the mouse is said to feel emotions like fear and "panic," "grief an' pain."
Secondly, the mouse has thoughts. The mouse doesn't just fear the speaker, she has an "ill opinion" of him. She saw the bare fields and drew the conclusion that "Winter [was] comin fast." In building her nest, she "thought to dwell" in it through the winter. The speaker claims that the mouse is affected by the "present only," while he, as a human, can look "backward" and "forward" to the past and the future. But the mouse's "foresight" in building her nest shows that she, too, shares some of this human ability to think about the future.
The speaker also takes the biblical commandment to permit gleaning, which originally applied only to humans, and extends it to the mouse. He allows the mouse her "daimen-icker in a thrave," her odd ear of corn, and says he'll find a "blessin wi' the lave," just as God promised to bless those farmers who permitted fellow humans to glean.
The speaker's anthropomorphism serves several purposes. It makes the poem more dramatic, since it turns what would otherwise be one person's solitary reflection into a scene with two characters interacting. The speaker notices that the mouse is reacting to him with fear; he must persuade her to trust him. This scene has higher stakes, too, because the speaker humanizes the mouse. If she can understand his words, then it is all the more important that he find the right words to express his sympathy.
Even more significantly, the anthropomorphism supports the speaker's claim that humans and animals share a "social union." If the mouse can think and feel in the way the speaker describes, then she has important qualities in common with human beings. These common qualities create a common bond. If humans share this common bond with animals, then they should, as the speaker implies, extend compassion towards them. Merely describing "Nature's social union" to the mouse as if she can understand the words helps show that this social union exists.
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Allusion
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Imagery
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Antithesis
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Consonance
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Aphorism
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Caesura
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"To a Mouse" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Wee
- Sleekit
- Cowran
- Tim'rous
- Beastie
- Thy
- Breastie
- Thou
- Na
- Start
- Awa
- Sae
- Wi'
- Bickerin brattle
- Wad
- Laith
- Rin
- An'
- Thee
- Murd'ring
- Pattle
- Dominion
- Justifies
- Whyles
- Thieve
- Maun
- Daimen-icker
- Thrave
- 'S
- Sma'
- Blessin
- Lave
- 'T
- Wee-bit
- Housie
- Silly wa's
- Win's
- Strewin'
- Naething
- Big
- Ane
- O'
- Foggage green
- Ensuin
- Baith
- Snell
- Keen
- Waste
- Cozie
- Coulter
- Past
- Thro'
- Cell
- Stibble
- Monie
- Thou's
- But
- Hald
- Thole
- Cranreuch cauld
- Art
- Thy-lane
- Foresight
- Vain
- Best Laid Schemes
- Gang Aft Agley
- Lea'e
- Nought
- Blest
- Compar’d
- Toucheth
- Backward Cast My E’e
- Prospects
- Drear
- Tho'
- Canna
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Small.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “To a Mouse”
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Form
The poem is written in what is called the “habbie stanza” or the “Burns stanza.” This stanza form is six lines long (sestet) and rhymes AAABAB. The A lines are tetrameter and the B lines are dimeter (more on this in "Meter"). The stanza form was first named for the Scottish bagpipe player Habbie Simpson, but is sometimes called the Burns stanza because Robert Burns used it extensively (in 50 or so of his poems), as did other Scottish poets in the eighteenth century.
The poem is divided into eight of these stanzas:
Stanza 1: lines 1-6
Stanza 2: 7-12
Stanza 3: 18-18
Stanza 4: 19-24
Stanza 5: 25-30
Stanza 6: 31-36
Stanza 7: 37-42
Stanza 8: 43-48An important feature of the habbie stanza for this poem is the fact that the last two lines can seem unexpected. The first four lines, with their three rhyming tetrameter lines and the concluding dimeter line, can sound to the reader like a complete unit, as if the stanza could end right there. The last two lines, then, may come as a surprise. The speaker sometimes uses this "surprising" quality of the stanza's final two lines to convey surprising or unexpected ideas.
For example, in stanza two, the speaker uses the final two lines to affirm a profound connection between himself and the mouse—a connection that seems unexpected after the reference to "Man's dominion." Similarly, the speaker uses the final two lines of stanza five, which come as a surprise to the reader, to describe the plough blade crashing through the nest, which came as a surprise to the mouse.
The habbie stanza is also notable for its unusual dimeter lines. These lines can be used to emphasize key phrases, since the shortness of the line makes the phrase stand out. The speaker uses the dimeter line in this way to call attention to the suffering that he and the mouse must endure—the "cranreuch cauld," for example, or "prospects drear."
Another important aspect of the poem's form is the fact that it is a dramatic monologue. It is spoken by a particular character in a particular context, as if the poem's speaker were a character in a play. The context is that the speaker has just "turn[ed] up" in the mouse's nest, as the poem's subtitle says. The speaker himself is a farmer and he addresses the poem to the mouse as one character addresses another onstage. Poets like Robert Browning ("My Last Duchess") and Alfred Lord Tennyson ("Ulysses") were especially well known for their dramatic monologues, but Robert Burns is an early and skilled user of this form.
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Meter
The poem is written with the habbie stanza, or Burns stanza, which has four lines of iambic tetrameter, one line of iambic dimeter, one line of iambic tetrameter, and finally one line of iambic dimeter. An iamb is a poetic foot with a da DUM beat pattern; tetrameter means there are four of these iambs per line, while dimeter means there are just two. Take a look at lines 37-42:
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!The poem's meter is largely regular. Some exceptions to the pattern include lines that stress the first syllable and lines that have feminine (unstressed) endings, adding an extra unstressed syllable at the end of the line. Lines 1-2, for example, scan:
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!In these lines, the unusual stress on the first syllable gives extra emphasis to "wee" and "O"—the mouse's small size and the speaker's mock gravity as he exclaims over her fright. These terms help establish the speaker's affectionate, joking tone.
Throughout the rest of the poem, the highly regular meter, together with the fact that most lines are end-stopped, allows the speaker to highlight important words by placing them at the end of the line. There, they receive emphasis both from the iambic stress on the line's final syllable and the pause at the end of the line. In lines 13-14, for example, "thieve" and "live" are stressed at the end of the line. These terms emphasize the way that mice are normally viewed under "Man's dominion," as thieves and pests, and the way the speaker is choosing to view the mouse differently, as a creature entitled by "Nature's social union" to "live."
The speaker also highlights important phrases by placing them in the unusual dimeter (two foot) lines. There, the shortness of the line makes the phrase stand out with even more significance. The speaker ends stanza six, for example, with the dimeter line "An' cranreuch cauld!" This reference to the winter's harsh frost becomes even starker when the phrase is set off by itself, alone—emphasizing that there is nothing for the mouse in this environment except the frost. The final line of the poem—"I guess an' fear!"—has a similarly stark quality by virtue of being so much more abrupt than the other lines. This makes sense, given that the speaker sees nothing but fearful prospects when he looks ahead to the future.
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Rhyme Scheme
The rhyme scheme of the poem, following the pattern of the habbie stanza (see "Form") is:
AAABAB
Every stanza of the poem uses that same rhyme scheme. The poem uses rhymes to join together key words, either words that have parallel meanings or words that have opposing or antithetical meanings. The similarity in sound helps the reader to pair those words and pay closer attention to their relationship—either a relationship of similarity or contrast. For instance, in lines 19, 20, and 23, "ruin," "strewin," and "ensuin," are rhymed. These words all emphasize the way that the mouse's nest will only be further destroyed by the winds, and the rhyme helps the reader see this connection between the words.
In lines 13-14, on the other hand, the speaker rhymes words with opposing meanings: "thieve" and "live." The first word suggests that the mouse has no right to take the farmer's food, since this would make her a thief; the second word suggests that the mouse has every right to take the farmer's food, since she has to survive. The speaker emphasizes the sharp contrast between these viewpoints by rhyming the two opposing words. (Note that the rhyme sound would be closer in the poet's dialect.) The rhyme also calls extra attention to the fact that the speaker adopts the second viewpoint, supporting the mouse's right to take food. This is a surprising perspective for a farmer, but he believes she has a right to "thieve" because she needs the food to "live." The rhyme helps the reader see both the contrast and the connection between the two words.
The poem frequently uses imperfect rhyme or slant rhyme. Slant rhyme is disruptive, breaking up the perfectly regular sound patterns. This disruption is especially effective in stanza seven when it reflects the disruption the speaker is describing. The main message of the stanza is that the future doesn't always unfold the way readers expect. When readers hear "agley" at the end of line 40, they expect a long /a/ sound at the end of line 42 but hear "joy" instead. By violating the reader's expectations, the rhyme scheme reinforces the meaning of the stanza.
In general, the slant rhyme prevents the poem from becoming too monotonous or sing-song, which could happen in a poem with only perfect rhymes, and continues to pull in the readers' attention by startling them with unexpected sounds. These broken rhymes work especially well in more somber moments of the poem, as when the speaker regrets making the mouse "startle" and gravely recognizes her as his "fellow-mortal."
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“To a Mouse” Speaker
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This poem is narrated from the speaker’s first-person point of view. The speaker is a farmer, likely an adult male, given the close resemblance of the speaker to Robert Burns himself. Burns had a great deal of sympathy for animals and consistently objected to shooting them. In a 1789 letter, Burns described the shooting of a hare as “a deep crime against the morality of the heart. We are equally creatures of some Great Creator”—a view that mirrors the speaker’s belief in “Nature’s social union.” A man who worked on Burns’s farm as a boy even told a story about how the poem came about. He was chasing a mouse with a “pattle” one day when Burns, who was ploughing nearby, saw and shouted at him to leave the poor animal alone. In the poem, the speaker is the one who upsets the mouse, but his sympathy for the creature reflects Burns’s own sentiments.
The speaker’s use of a plough also connects him to Burns. Burns, a farmer himself, was praised as the “Heaven-taught ploughman,” for his skillful use of Scottish dialect and moving images of rural life. Burns’s brother even claimed that Burns wrote “To a Mouse” with his hand actually on a plough.
The speaker begins with a relatively relaxed attitude and addresses the mouse in a good humored, gently mocking tone as a “wee … beastie.” He shows affection toward the mouse but does not seem to take her plight very seriously at first. Rather quickly, though, the speaker’s light-hearted attitude shifts to a more serious consideration of the larger problem that the mouse represents: the breaking of “Nature’s social union.” He also takes the mouse’s distressed state more seriously as he reflects on how it represents his own state and the state of all creatures. He is the mouse’s “poor … companion” and “fellow-mortal.” The mouse’s plight is just one example of how all creatures suffer “grief an’ pain.” While endearing terms like “Mousie” still show some light-hearted affection, the speaker becomes more and more somber as the poem goes on, as he dwells more deeply on the inescapable tragedies of life.
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“To a Mouse” Setting
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The poem is set on a farm, where the speaker has been ploughing and where mice eat corn from the fields and build nests from coarse grass. The farm is most likely in rural Scotland, given that the speaker uses a Scottish dialect (with distinctive words like “wee” and “snell,” and variants on standard English words like “na” for not and "laith" for “loath). The year is 1785 and the month is November, as the subtitle says. It is likely late in the month, as the speaker says that “December’s winds” are already starting to blow.
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Literary and Historical Context of “To a Mouse”
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Literary Context
Robert Burns won fame and popularity for the distinctive language of his poems, a blend of formal English and Scottish dialect. This blend is visible in “To a Mouse,” in phrases like “Man’s dominion” and “bickerin brattle.” Burns’s vernacular style, along with his origins as a farmer, made him known as the “heaven-taught ploughman.” But his poems didn’t come simply from natural genius. Burns had little formal education, but he was widely read, and “To a Mouse” shows how he found inspiration in other poets.
Anna Barbauld, for example, was a contemporary poet Burns admired. Barbauld wrote a popular poem called “The Mouse’s Petition to Dr Priestly Found in the Trap where he had been Confined all Night.” The poem’s speaker is a mouse who pleads with Dr. Priestly, a celebrated scientist, to spare its life instead of using it for scientific experiments. Barbauld shows sympathy for the mouse’s plight, much like Burns’s poem.
Burns also draws on the famous 18th-century poet Alexander Pope. Burns knew Pope’s work well, and “To A Mouse” alludes to Pope’s poem “An Essay on Man.” Pope refers to “forms of social union,” which prevailed in the “state of nature,” the “reign of God.” In this state, Pope wrote, “Man walked with beast, joint tenant of the shade … No murder clothed him, and no murder fed.” Humans did not kill animals but shared their food with them. According to Christian belief, humans and animals enjoyed this kind of peace in the Garden of Eden. Sadly, this “social union” was broken when humans sinned, were expelled from the Garden, and began killing animals for food and clothing. By using these lines from Pope, Burns makes his poem a comment on something much larger than a single encounter between a farmer and a mouse. The poem calls to mind all broken relationships that come from human sin, and also shows the speaker trying, in a small way, to recover the original peaceful harmony between humans and animals.
Burns also alludes more indirectly to William Shakespeare, an author he loved. Burns’s poem “A Winter Night” has an epigraph from Shakespeare’s King Lear, and “To a Mouse” seems inspired particularly by Lear. In this play, the elderly Lear is turned out of his home into a stormy night and reflects that “unaccommodated man,” man without shelter or clothing, “is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal.” He also expresses pity for other homeless persons caught in the storm: “How shall your houseless heads … defend you / From seasons such as these?” Faced with loss of home and comfort, King Lear finds the commonalities between humans and animals and feels greater compassion for all humans. Burns’s speaker comes to similar realizations after accidentally forcing the mouse out of her home.
Altogether, “To a Mouse” reveals that Robert Burns was not simply a farmer with a natural knack for verse. He was also a perceptive reader of poetry, and he used and transformed a variety of poetic sources to create his work. This poem, in turn, has become a source for other writers. Several novels and poems have taken their titles from lines from this poem. The most famous is John Steinbeck's classic 1937 novel, Of Mice and Men.
Historical Context
In “To A Mouse,” the speaker destroys the mouse’s nest with a plough and the mouse is rendered homeless. These two aspects of the poem mirror two aspects of social change in Burns’s day. The Scottish Agricultural Revolution, a transformation and modernization of farming practices, was unfolding in the late 18th century. In past centuries, individuals without their own land could graze their animals for free on common land. This system changed in the 1700s. Scottish landowners used advances in agricultural science and technology—including the English plough—to make farming more efficient. They enclosed, or took over, common land so that poorer individuals could no longer use this land to make a living.
Landowners also raised rents for tenant farmers (farmers who lived and worked on their land) and tore down villages. In this process, known as the Lowland Clearances, thousands of farmers were forced to leave their homes. The poem’s speaker, with his plough, represents the advancements of the Scottish Agricultural Revolution. The mouse, turned out of her home by the plough, represents those who lost their homes and livelihoods at the same time.
The mouse also represents those poorer, landless citizens who survived by gleaning. Gleaning is gathering the crops that remain in the field after the harvest. In the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament), laws require farmers to leave behind whatever food they dropped or overlooked for the poor to glean. The mouse’s request of a “daimen-icker in a thrave,” a stray ear of corn from a large bundle, would be what someone would glean from a field.
In many parts of Christian Europe, the poor were given the right to glean by law. However, in the late 18th century, the practice of gleaning came under attack. Some viewed gleaning as stealing. An important case ended the legal right to glean in England in 1788, three years after the poem was written. Several cases in Scotland also took away gleaning rights. In saying the mouse “thieve[s],” the speaker reminds the reader of those people who wished to glean but were turned away as thieves. The speaker, however, does allow the mouse her “sma’ request” and says it will bring him a “blessin’”—just as God, in the Bible, promises to bless the farmers who allowed the poor to glean.
Burns’s father was a tenant farmer, and Burns farmed alongside him. Around the time when he wrote “To A Mouse,” Burns thought he might have to leave Scotland and take work on a plantation in Jamaica due to his failed harvests and growing debts. Burns, who had strongly democratic sympathies, would have had many reasons to feel compassion for the hungry poor and for farmers displaced from their homes. This compassion comes through in his speaker’s attitude towards the hungry, displaced mouse.
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More “To a Mouse” Resources
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External Resources
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The Robert Burns Encyclopedia — Find information here on Robert Burns's life, poems, and the people and places he knew.
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Robert Burns Night — Learn about Robert Burns Night, an annual event celebrating Burns's life and works, and find digital resources like a Robert Burns app and podcast.
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Robert Burns Biography — Learn about Robert Burns's life in this detailed biography, which focuses on his growth as a poet.
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Recitation of "To a Mouse" — Listen to "To a Mouse" recited by the actor Christopher Tait, an actor who performs at Burns Nights and other Scottish events around the world.
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"To a Mouse" Original Printing — View a digitized copy of the "Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect" (sometimes called the Kilmarnock Edition), in which "To a Mouse" was first published in 1785.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Burns
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