The exact words
The mouse and the plough
In November 1785, Robert Burns was a struggling young tenant farmer at Mossgiel in Ayrshire. While he was ploughing a field, the blade tore through the winter nest of a field mouse and sent her running. His brother Gilbert later said Burns composed the poem while still holding the plough, and the farmhand working with him remembered running after the mouse to kill it until Burns called him back. The poem he wrote, “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough,” was published the next year in his first book and has been loved ever since.
It opens with a tender apology to the “wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beastie,” the small, sleek, cowering, timid creature. Burns says he is sorry that man’s dominion has broken nature’s social union, and that the mouse is welcome to the occasional ear of grain she steals. Then he looks at what is left of her home: the little heap of leaves and stubble that cost her so many weary nibbles, wrecked just as winter sets in.
What the line means
The famous stanza turns from her loss to everyone’s. “But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,” Burns tells her, you are not alone, “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!” The most careful plans of mice and humans often go wrong and leave us only grief instead of the joy we expected.
The last stanza adds a darker twist. The mouse is luckier than he is, Burns says, because only the present troubles her. He looks back at a past full of “prospects drear” and forward at a future he can only guess and fear. It is a remarkably modern ending, and it makes the poem about more than bad luck.
How to use it
The line is a perfect light touch for any speech where something went wrong, from a rained-out wedding to a failed product launch. Quoting the Scots is more fun than the flattened English version, but translate “gang aft agley” for your audience. In writing, mention the mouse; it is what gives the line its gentleness.
What people get wrong
“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” an English proverb.
The original is in Scots, from Burns's 1785 poem about a mouse whose nest he destroyed. “Gang aft agley” means “often go wrong.”
Timeline
- November 1785Ploughing a field at Mossgiel farm, Burns turns up a mouse's winter nest. The poem he writes about it is dated to this month.
- 1786The poem appears in Burns's first book, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, printed in Kilmarnock. It makes him famous.
- 1937John Steinbeck takes the title of his novel Of Mice and Men from the line.
- TodayThe line is usually quoted in English as “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
Use it in a speech
Questions people ask
What does “gang aft agley” mean?
“Often go wrong” or “often go awry” in Scots. “Gang” is go, “aft” is often, and “agley” means askew or off course.
What is the poem about?
Burns accidentally destroys a mouse's nest while ploughing in November. He apologizes, reflects that plans often fail for mice and humans alike, and says the mouse is luckier because it lives only in the present.
Is Of Mice and Men named after the poem?
Yes. John Steinbeck took the title of his 1937 novel from this line, which fits a story about two men whose dream of a farm falls apart.
Cite this quote
These cite the original source directly, so you can use them in an essay or paper. Always check your teacher's required style.