Wednesday Poetry: "To a Mouse," by Robert Burns

First of all, sorry for the lack of a Monday update; I tried to post something while I was visiting Rutgers-Newark, but apparently you can only connect to the Internet there with a student ID and a password. (No guest wifi? Balderdash!)

Today's poem is by Robert Burns (1759-1796), the national poet of Scotland. During his 37 years, he was a prolific poet and songwriter, and he also led an interesting life outside of that. I first learned of Burns in December 2008 when I visited Edinburgh, Scotland, the UNESCO World City of Literature. Burns, especially in America, gets overlooked, but his poetry is a brand of heartfelt romanticism that presages that of Wordsworth and Coleridge. In many ways, Burns was a more sincere romanticist than Wordsworth because, instead of just praising and lauding the working classes, Burns actually wrote in their dialect and worked that commonplace language into elegant poetic forms.

I've also selected this particular poem because it's the origin of a common cliché, which you'll notice as soon as you get to that stanza. Try imagining this read in a Scottish brogue; it helps immensely.

To a Mouse
On turning her up in her Nest with the Plough. November 1785.

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae haesty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

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
'S a sma' request;
I'll get a blessin' wi the lave,
An' never miss't!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
It's silly wa's the win's are strewin!
An naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin',
Baith snell an' keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
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,
An cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art 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:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear!

Wednesday Poetry: "Speak!" by William Wordsworth

Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant--
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
For naught but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak -- though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird's-nest fill'd with snow
'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine--
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know.