To a Mouse

“To a Mouse” uses a stanza form that is largely unique to Scottish poetry. The stanzas are sestets, containing six lines each, and follow an AAABAB rhyme scheme. The A-rhyming lines follow iambic tetrameter, which means they consist of four metrical feet (tetrameter) of two syllables which are unstressed on the first beat and stressed on the second (iambs). The B-rhyming lines follow iambic dimeter, which means they consist of two metrical feet (dimeter) and follow the same stress pattern as the A-rhyming lines. The poem’s meter deviates slightly. The entire first stanza, for instance, adds an extra unstressed syllable at the end of its lines. Indented lines signify B end rhymes, as is standard in Burns’s era.

This stanza form is sometimes called the “Burns stanza” for Burns’s extensive use of the form. They are more correctly known as standard Habbie stanzas, and are named after the Robert Sempill poem, “The Life and Death of Habbie Simson,” which popularized the form. Though the form was originally used for laments, Burns and his contemporaries often used it for comedic verse. Typically, each standard Habbie will denote a change in the speaker’s focus. In “To a Mouse,” Burns follows this convention.