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"To a Mouse" (in fou, "To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785") is a poem in Scots bi Robert Burns. The title is whiles written in Scots as "Tae a Moose".^[1] Burns wrote it in November 1785, an it wis prentit in his first buik, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, that John Wilson published in Kilmaurnock in 1786.^[2] The poet speaks tae a moose whase nest he haes turnt up wi his pleuch. Alang wi "Puir Mailie", it is ane o the poems in that buik that shaw Burns's tenderness taewart beasts.^[3]

The poem's seivent verse gies the weel-kent lines "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, / Gang aft agley",^[2] an John Steinbeck teuk the title o his novel Of Mice and Men frae them.^[4]

Burns wrote the poem while he wis farmin at Mossgiel, near Mauchlin in Ayrshire. His brither Gilbert said that "To a Mouse" wis written while Burns wis haudin the pleuch, that he coud pynt oot the verra spot, an that haudin the pleuch wis "a favorite situation with Robert for poetic composition".^[5][6]

The biographer Robert Chambers gied a fuller story, that he haed frae John Blane, a ferm servant at Mossgiel at the time, wha wis still livin in Kilmaurnock in 1838. Burns wis haudin the pleuch, wi Blane drivin, whan the moose ran across the field. Blane ran efter it wi the pettle tae kill it, but Burns stappit him, "asking what ill the poor mouse had ever done him". Burns wis quiet the rest o the efternuin, an that nicht he waukent Blane, read him the new poem, an "asked what he thought of the mouse now".^[5]

The poem wis prentit on pages 138 tae 140 o the Kilmarnock edition o 1786, unner the title "To a Mouse, On turning her up in her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785".^[2] The hale poem, as it wis prentit in 1786:^[2]

"To a Mouse" haes aucht verses o sax lines.^[2] They are written in the stanza that Allan Ramsay cried the "Standart Habby", or Standard Habbie: it rhymes aaabab, an the short b lines mak a "bob-wheel".^[7] Ilka verse haes fower lang lines (the first, seicont, third an fift) that rhyme thegither, an twa short anes (the fowert an saxt) that rhyme wi ilk ither. In the first verse, beastie, breastie, hasty an chase thee are the a rhymes, an brattle an pattle the b rhymes.^[2] The form taks its nem frae The Piper of Kilbarchan, a mock elegy for the piper Habbie Simpson that is ascribed tae Robert Sempill o Beltrees, aboot 1640; Ramsay, Fergusson an Burns gied it its popularity.^[7] Burns uised it that aften that it is whiles cried the "Burns stanza".^[8]

The poet taks the blame for brakin up the moose's hame: in the seicont verse he is "truly sorry Man's dominion / Has broken Nature's social union".^[2]

The seivent verse warns that foresicht can come tae naething for mice an men alike.^[2] Its lines "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, / Gang aft agley" are noo a sayin, meanin that the maist carefu plans can gang wrang. John Steinbeck teuk baith the title an the theme o his novel Of Mice and Men (1937) frae the poem.^[4]

In the hintmaist verse the poet turns tae his ain case: the moose kens anerly the praisent, but he leuks back on "prospects drear" an forrit wi fear.^[2] George Wilkie reads that last verse as shawin "the absolute despondency that Burns was feeling at this stage in his life", whan he wis a young man o 26.^[9]

Wikisource haes oreeginal text relatit tae this airticle: To a Mouse

• The text o the poem, wi fou notes
• Dawn Steele recitin the poem