To A Louse

To A Louse
Robert Burns (1759 - 1796)

Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her-
Sae fine a lady?
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle,
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rels, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it-
The verra tapmost, tow'rin height
O' Miss' bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' grey as ony groset:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum.

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit dubbie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss' fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't?

O Jeany, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin:
Thae winks an' finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin.

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

This poem is a psychological vignette. A pretty young girl stands in church enjoying the admiration of one or more young men whose attention she attracts. In fact at least one of the men has noticed a louse crawling upon her, and so the point of observation is one of disgust rather than admiration. There is broad comedy in all this misapprehension (or people looking the wrong way), as no-one is, as he or she should be, paying attention to God at the Sunday service. The mock-anger of the narrator, however, is underpinned by the realisation for the careful reader that humanity and ‘nature’ (represented by the louse) are not opposites, but part of the one phenomenon of life (or even God’s creation). Humans in their fancy Sunday-best clothes and in their notions of hierarchy and status are being pretentious. The narrator, ironically, accuses the insect of being presumptuous in setting foot on the pretty girl, Jenny, but of course it is merely part of brute nature. It is pointless to berate the louse or nature for being what it is; it is the human race that pretends to be what it is not (altogether separate from nature).

Alongside the didacticism of the poem, we should be aware also of a tender humour or sympathy towards Jenny and humanity generally. Humanity is physical, natural and fragile, and Jenny is a lovely creature even with a louse crawling upon her. Burns’s famous lines in this poem (on how we see ourselves, and how we think other people see us):

O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

All ‘Teams and Leaders’ courses involve physical journeys, but are also journeys of development and discovery for the individual and the team. I hope that the journey started with Outward Bound® continues long after the course.