Today’s Poem: To a Mouse

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

Hieronymus Bosch, detail from the central panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1500 (Wikimedia Commons)

To a Mouse

by Robert Burns

On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,	◦ little, sleek, cowering, timorous 
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
 	Wi’ bickerin brattle!			        ◦ noisy rush
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
	Wi’ murd’ring pattle! 			        ◦ pattle = paddle = plow’s blade

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!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen-icker in a thrave			        ◦ a stray-grain in a large store
	’S a sma’ request:				                  of twenty-four sheaves
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,			◦ lave = remainder
	An’ never miss ’t!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in r…