TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST, WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER, 1785. [Here we again see how, in the words of Thomas Carlyle, the poet "rises to the high, stoops to the low, and is brother and playmate to all nature." This is, by readers gentle and readers simple, acknowledged to be one of the most perfect little gems that ever human genius produced. One of its couplets has passed into a proverb:-"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley."] WEE, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, I'm truly sorry Man's dominion Which makes thee startle, At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; 'S a sma' request : I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, An' never miss't! Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! An' bleak December's winds ensuin, Baith snell an' keen! Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast, 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. 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, But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, 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! EPISTLE TO DAVIE, A BROTHER POET. January [The references to "my darling Jean," in this most delightful poem, shew that January, 1785, is its proper date. Some editors have set down the year 1784, and the writer of the memoir of Sillar, in the "Contemporaries of Burns," unreasonably contends for 1782 being the real date; but "Rab Mossgiel" had no acquaintanceship with "Mauchline Belles" before the spring and summer of 1784. David Sillar was one year younger than Burns, and like him, was the son of a small farmer in the neighbourhood of Tarbolton, and although he had taught in the parish school for a month or two, during a vacancy previous to the appointment of John Wilson (Hornbook o' the clachan), he had no claim to the character of "scholar," bestowed on him by Allan Cunningham. His "Poems," published in 1789, prove him to have been no poet. He resided in Irvine from the close of the year 1783, first as a grocer, and thereafter as a schoolmaster: for several years, latterly, he was a councillor, and eventually a bailie of that town, where he died much respected in 1830. The intensity of Burns' love for his Jean is strongly indicated in the present poem, and some of the expressions used in reference to that affection-"Her dear idea brings relief," and those lines "The life blood streaming thro' my heart, Is not more fondly dear! have their counterparts in the little fragment in his Scrap-Book, under date May, 1785, which evidently is the first sketch of the world-famous song, "Of a' the airts," &c., composed in honour of her, "Her dear idea round my heart should tenderly entwine: Tho' mountains rise and deserts howl, and oceans roar between; WHILE winds frae off BEN-LOMOND blaw, And hing us owre the ingle, I set me down, to pass the time, While frosty winds blaw in the drift, I grudge a wee the Great-folk's gift, I tent less, and want less To see their cursed pride. It's hardly in a body's pow'r, But DAVIE lad, ne'er fash your head, Auld age ne'er mind a feg; To lye in kilns and barns at e'en, Yet then content could make us blest; The honest heart that's free frae a' What tho', like Commoners of air, But either house or hal'? Yet Nature's charms, the hills and woods, In days when Daisies deck the ground, With honest joy, our hearts will bound, On braes when we please then, We'll sit and sowth a tune; * Ramsay.-(R. B. 1786.) It's no in titles nor in rank; We may be wise, or rich, or great, Nae treasures, nor pleasures That makes us right or wrang. Think ye, that sic as you and I, Wha drudge and drive thro' wet and dry, Think ye, are we lest blest than they, Baith careless, and fearless, It a' an idle tale! Then let us chearfu' acquiesce; And, ev'n should Misfortunes come, They make us see the naked truth, |