240 years ago today,Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect by Robert Burns, the National Poet of Scotland, was published in Kilmarnock. It was a hit, and catapulted him to Scottish Stardom. Among the collection is one of his two most famous poems, To a Mouse, which is actually called To a Mouse, on turning up her nest, with the plough, November. Of Burns' reputation as the "ploughman poet" who writes about rural life, this title is typical, but not as dramatic as The auld Farmer's new-year-morning Salutation, to his auld Mare, Maggy, on giving her the accustomed ripp of Corn to hansel in the new year.READsome of these poems... (1786)
