What happens in Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse”?

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Engraved portrait of Robert Burns, shown from the waist up wearing a dark jacket and cravat, facing slightly to the left. — Robert Burns Robert Burns, engraving from *A Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen*, 1870.

In the poem "To a Mouse," the speaker—a farmer—accidentally destroys a mouse's nest while plowing a field. Upon seeing the mouse flee, the speaker expresses empathy for the creature, reflecting on the fragility of life and the shared vulnerability of both humans and animals.1

The poem is best known for the speaker's philosophical observation that even the most carefully prepared plans often go wrong, leaving behind only grief and pain instead of the expected joy. This sentiment is famously captured in the lines:1

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley.1

This reflection on the unpredictability of life serves as the inspiration for the title of John Steinbeck’s 1937 novella, Of Mice and Men.1