To a Mouse: Robert Burns

To a Mouse is one of the better known works of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Burns is well known for his association with Scotland as the nation's poet and for his blunt, honest writing. Burns was one of the founders of the Romantic movement and is notable for often writing in a light Scottish dialect.

In To a Mouse, Burns narrates an encounter a man has with a small mouse. The poem is notable for its  very clear story ark of the encounter and its results. The first stanza: 

"Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie
O, what panic's in thy breast!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!"

This stanza begins the story, a man encountering a mouse and encouraging it not to flee, despite its obvious fear of him.

In this stanza, we get an idea of Burn's structure and rhyme scheme. The rhymes are imperfect ("thee" and "hasty") and occur in a standard alternating style. Burns's use of the Scottish dialect becomes apparent. We see the intentional modification of words to fit the dialect ("Wi' murd"ring" as opposed to "with murdering"). Burns may be utilizing the dialect to cheat, in a sense. The dialect using allows him to make words flow smoothly by removing excess syllables from sentences. Furthermore, the use of the dialect forces one to interpret it in its accent form- in other words, the reader does not "hear" plain English while reading, but the dialect.

We also see use of Scottish diction. Words like laith (loath), pattle (small shovel), and brattle(scurry or run) help emphasize the tone of the poem. They also send a clear message that the poem was written for the people of Scotland and perhaps northern England, as the diction might not be understood outside these places. 

From here the poems story quickly progresses, with the narrator adopting a more serious tone with less use of Scottish diction. 

"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!"

The narrator begins to begin what becomes the theme of the rest of the poem; man's scourging of nature and the mistreatment of mice by men. Burns equates himself with the mouse, and then goes on in the next stanzas to explore the mouse's perspective. 

Consider the life of a mouse; a hated creature that is honestly just doing what it needs to do to survive.
It may steal crumbs, but in the end that is a small thing in comparison to the life of the mouse. After exploring the true pain that a mouse has to face in life, Burns then again equates himself with the mouse, this time on a personal level. 

"But Mousie, thou are 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!

Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me! 
The present only toucheth thee:.... "

Burns explores not only the pain felt by a mouse, a being hated by all but God, whose plans and goals are ravaged by the contempt others hold for them, but the pain of men. Burns brings up his personal life in the writing of the poem- perhaps a reference to the tragedies he has suffered prior to writing the poem. His beloved, Mary Campbell, had recently passed away, and Burns's brother had contracted typhus. Furthermore, Burns found himself in a much grimmer financial state- which prompted him to publish several of his works, including To a Mouse. 

Is it a testament to natures glory, an anthem for the mice among us, or the lesson that no matter how we may plan and fret, our plans will disintegrate before life? It is all of them. To a Mouse is a simple poem with very, very profound roots.