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Teachers & SchoolsThe Plough
Ah, the plough (American spelling is "plow," in case you were confused). What's a mouse to do? You build a nest, insulate it and stock up against the coming winter, and then a plough comes and mows it over. The plough tearing up the mouse's nest is the opening situation that motivates the speaker of the poem to write at all, so you better believe the plough is doing something important. It's possible that the plough represents human civilization and the kind of "progress" that has "broken nature's social union," as the speaker says in line 8. What else might the plough represent?