TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOW, NOVEMBER, 1785.1 I doubtna, whiles, but thou may thieve; 'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, And never miss't! 15 1 "The occasion of this poem was commonplace enough. The poet was plowing in November, 1785, and the plowshare happened to turn up the nest of a field mouse. The small creature was in haste to escape, when one of Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, the farm servants, John Blane, made after it with the plow spade, or pattle. Burns called to him to stop, and fell into a pensive mood, in which he composed the piece just as it stands " (J. LOGIE ROBERTSON). TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,1 ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOW, IN APRIL, 1786. WEE, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r, For I maun crush amang the stoure To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet, Wi' spreckl'd breast, When upward springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east. 5 ΙΟ 1 Burns sent this poem, with a letter dated April 20, 1786, to his friend, John Kennedy, clerk to the earl of Dumfries, saying: "I have here likewise inclosed a small piece, the very latest of my productions. I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments myself, as they are just the native, querulous feelings of a heart which, as the elegantly melting Gray says, ' melancholy has marked for her own."" Cauld blew the bitter-biting north Scarce rear'd above the parent earth Thy tender form. The flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield, High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield; O' clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble field, Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, In humble guise; 15 20 25 1 Cf. Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, lines 329-336. 40 |