Lyric Poem · Life
A Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc
by Robert Burns
WHEN Princes and Prelates,
And hot-headed zealots,
A’ Europe had set in a low, a low,
The poor man lies down,
Nor envies a crown,
And comforts himself as he dow, as he dow,
And comforts himself as he dow.
The black-headed eagle,
As keen as a beagle,
He hunted o’er height and o’er howe,
In the braes o’ Gemappe,
He fell in a trap,
E’en let him come out as he dow, dow, dow,
E’en let him come out as he dow.
· · · · · · · But truce with commotions,
And new-fangled notions,
A bumper, I trust you’ll allow;
Here’s George our good king,
And Charlotte his queen,
And lang may they ring as they dow, dow, dow,
And lang may they ring as they dow.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“A Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc” by Robert Burns — quilloak.com/poems/a-tippling-ballad-when-princes-and-prelates-etc
Quick facts
- Poem
- A Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc
- Poet
- Robert Burns
- Length
- 21 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Life
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 21 lines · 2 stanzas of 7–14 lines
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Robert Burns1759–1796
- Source record
- PoetryDBA Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc by robert-burns, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 9b5aaee9cf8c8cea…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Keep reading
When You Are Old
W. B. Yeats · 1893
12 lines · lyric
So We'll Go No More a Roving
Lord Byron · 1817
12 lines · lyric
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Robert Herrick · 1648
16 lines · lyric