After re-reading an old post of mine about Burns Night, and Ryan’s brilliant taste in poems, I was inspired to share some of my favourite poems. “To A Mouse” is written in the Scottish dialect – I’m posting the original below, the same way it was read to me by my English teacher way back when, but you can also view a standard English translation here to help it all make sense.
Rabbie Burns – who made a living through farm work, not his poetry – turned up a mouse’s nest while ploughing, inspiring him to write about it.
It also inspired the title of “Of Mice and Men”, a very fine and often underrated book (I still remember those beautiful opening descriptions).
Here’s a video of it pronounced in the broad Scots accent, which can be played along with the poem to get an idea of the rhythm and pronunciations. (I’ve been tempted to do a recording myself, but I’m very self-conscious about my accent…)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy8lehO7nqg[/youtube]
To A Mouse.
On turning her up in her nest with the plough, November 1785.
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murdering 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 win’s 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 turned 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 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 canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
I am *so* forwarding this to wifey! Not just the video, but your blog article. And, my goodness girl, you’re Scottish! What shame is there to have in your accent? I’m sure your American audience, at least, would be charmed to hear you read the next piece of poetry! Deal: you read it, and I’ll link to it on my blog. :)
Haha. I have quite a thick Hebridean (remote Western Scottish islands) accent and it has the habit of reducing most of what I say into soft-spoken Gaelic-sounding gibberish. I’d trade it in for the gorgeous Edinburgh accent any day (or Sean Connery’s accent, because c’mon, Sean Connery).
On the flip side, my accent’s also regularly mistaken for an American one somehow? I have no idea why because the Scottishness is clear to me, but I’ve had runs in in the past where an old Scottish woman got horribly offended at me for calling her ‘m’aam’ in a retail environment, because it was just as offensive as calling her ducky (and there was some other ranting implying it wasn’t a ‘Scottish’ thing to call her). So maybe my lovely American audience will just be horribly underwhelmed, heh.
I will allow this because it seems that the only way to communicate with the white world is through the dead, dry leaves of a book.