Robin quotes a line from the Robert Burns poem called To A Mouse[1]
To A Mouse is a poem by Robert Burns, written in the year 1785. Robin once quoted the poem.
The poem[]
- Small, crafty, cowering, timorous little beast,
- O, what a panic is in your little breast!
- You need not start away so hasty
- With argumentative chatter!
- I would be loath to run and chase you,
- With murdering plough-staff.
- I'm truly sorry man's dominion
- Has broken Nature's social union,
- And justifies that ill opinion
- Which makes thee startle
- At me, thy poor, earth born companion
- And fellow mortal!
- I doubt not, sometimes, but you may steal;
- What then? Poor little beast, you must live!
- An odd ear in twenty-four sheaves
- Is a small request;
- I will get a blessing with what is left,
- And never miss it.
- Your small house, too, in ruin!
- Its feeble walls the winds are scattering!
- And nothing now, to build a new one,
- Of coarse grass green!
- And bleak December's winds coming,
- Both bitter and keen!
- You saw the fields laid bare and wasted,
- And weary winter coming fast,
- And cozy here, beneath the blast,
- You thought to dwell,
- Till crash! the cruel plough passed
- Out through your cell.
- That small bit heap of leaves and stubble,
- Has cost you many a weary nibble!
- Now you are turned out, for all your trouble,
- Without house or holding,
- To endure the winter's sleety dribble,
- And hoar-frost cold.
- But little Mouse, you are not alone,
- In proving foresight may be vain:
- The best laid schemes of mice and men
- Go often awry,
- And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
- For promised joy!
- Still you are blest, compared with me!
- The present only touches you:
- But oh! I backward cast my eye,
- On prospects dreary!
- And forward, though I cannot see,
- I guess and fear!
References[]
Footnotes[]
- ↑ As seen in Professor Goodfellow's G.E.E.C.