Robert Burns, Environmentalist, on Mice and Men

"The best-laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley." This line from Robert Burns' "To a Mouse," published in 1786, has become internationally famous. (Image: Burns by Alexander Nasmyth, 1828)

Burns wrote "To a Mouse" like many of his poems, in a Scots dialect many people find hard to follow without a bit of translation. The relevant line from the poem is often rendered into "standard" English as "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go awry." 

Burns' poem got a major boost from the success of John Steinbeck's Depression Era novel Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck projects Burns' theme onto the lives of George and Lennie, two down-and-out farm laborers seeking work and a better life. Their plans of buying a little farm with rabbits and settling down "gang agley" in a tragic denouement.

The climate crisis, the Covid pandemic, and the Ukraine war, make Burns' rumination on the fates of mice and men as relevant as ever. Such events may be likened to the destructive force of Burns' plough. 

In the poem, Burns, an Ayrshire farmer, apologizes to the mouse. His plough has destroyed the "wee beasties'" home. However humble, the mouse had labored hard to make his house secure for winter. 

In addressing the mouse, Burns sounds like a modern environmentalist. He pointedly stresses the interconnectedness of humans and the natural world:

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!

Burns goes on to compare the mouse's predicament to his own. He was in financial difficulties at the time (and reaping the consequences of relentless womanizing).  In a way, he suggests the mouse is better off because it lacks a sense of the past and future:

Still thou are blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e'e

On prospects drear!

An' forward, tho' I cannot see,

I guess an' fear!

Many of us have had our plans ripped apart by various events. Holidays abroad, business trips, and visits to families and friends churned up and away like the soil under Burns' plough. 

But those are minor disruptions. Things could be worse, much worse. Ask the Ukrainians, the people of Pakistan, Turkey, Sudan, and other countries hit by recent disasters. 

Meanwhile, tour companies are advertising great trips for 2023 and beyond. Life must go on. We need to dream, to have something to look forward to, to plan ahead for good or ill. But we can be forgiven if we sometimes feel like the mouse with Burns' plough bearing down on us. 

PS. Burns was looking for new opportunities around the time he wrote "To a Mouse." One of the jobs he nearly took was that of overseer on a Jamaican sugar plantation, which sits in stark contrast to the anti-slavery and egalitarian themes of many of his later poems. 

While preparing for the voyage to the West Indies, he sent his poems to a publisher in Kilmarnock. The volume was published to great acclaim. It is known today as the "Kilmarnock Edition." (Image: Title page to Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 1786)

The success of the book led Burns to abandon the Jamaican plan. He decided to stay in Scotland, left his Ayrshire farm to his brother, and headed for the bright lights of Edinburgh. 

There he would find further success and wider acclaim in the clubs and salons of the Scottish capital. Before long, he soured on genteel society. He alienated many friends and influential men through his outspoken support for the American and French Revolutions and for political reform in Britain. 

Burns returned to his native Ayrshire and became an excise officer. He died in 1796, possibly from rheumatic heart disease aggravated by hard work. He was 37. (Image: Burns by Alexander Nasmyth, 1787)

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