To a Mouse

To A Mouse
by Robert Burns
CountryScotland
LanguageScots
Rhyme schemeAAABAB
Publication dateNovember, 1785

"To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785"[1][2] is a Scots-language poem written by Robert Burns in 1785. It was included in the Kilmarnock Edition[3] and all of the poet's later editions, such as the Edinburgh Edition. According to legend, Burns was ploughing in the fields at his Mossgiel Farm and accidentally destroyed a mouse's nest, which it needed to survive the winter. Burns's brother, Gilbert, claimed that the poet composed the poem while still holding his plough.[4]

  1. ^ Burns, Robert. "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785".
  2. ^ Burns, Robert. "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785"..
  3. ^ Burns, Robert (1786). Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect. Kilmarnock: John Wilson. p. 138. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
  4. ^ Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. (2012). The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. D. New York: W. W. Norton. Print.