To a Mouse

“To a Mouse” relies on a combination of Scots dialect and sentimentality to depict the speaker’s empathy for the non-human. These two main qualities, in concert with the spontaneity implied by the poem’s subtitle, work together to characterize the speaker as a humble farmhand with deep feelings and an even deeper connection with the natural world. Burns is careful in creating this depiction to ensure that the speaker’s sentimentality aligns with their use of dialect in order to imply a connection between the speaker’s deep emotion and Scottish authenticity.

These connections are first established by the poem’s subtitle, which provides the narrative frame that the work was composed after the speaker uncovered a mouse “in her Nest, with the Plough.” This subtitle establishes the two main subjects of the poem, the mouse and the farmer-speaker, and communicates that the poem was occasioned by the farmer “turning [the mouse] up.” This frame, then, suggests that the poem was composed soon after the events, meaning that it is not a measured response but a spontaneous composition that reflects the speaker’s emotional state.

The strongest indication, outside of the subtitle, that the poem should be understood as a spontaneous, emotional composition is the prevalent use of Scots dialect in the work’s first stanza.