Lyric Poem · Peace
The Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad
by Robert Burns
1DIRE was the hate at old Harlaw,
2 That Scot to Scot did carry;
3And dire the discord Langside saw
4 For beauteous, hapless Mary:
5But Scot to Scot ne’er met so hot,
6 Or were more in fury seen, Sir,
7Than ’twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job,
8 Who should be the Faculty’s Dean, Sir.
9This Hal for genius, wit and lore,
10 Among the first was number’d;
11But pious Bob, ’mid learning’s store,
12 Commandment the tenth remember’d:
13Yet simple Bob the victory got,
14 And wan his heart’s desire,
15Which shews that heaven can boil the pot,
16 Tho’ the devil piss in the fire.
17Squire Hal, besides, had in this case
18 Pretensions rather brassy;
19For talents, to deserve a place,
20 Are qualifications saucy.
21So their worships of the Faculty,
22 Quite sick of merit’s rudeness,
23Chose one who should owe it all, d’ye see,
24 To their gratis grace and goodness.
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“The Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad” by Robert Burns — quilloak.com/poems/the-dean-of-faculty-a-new-ballad
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad
- Poet
- Robert Burns
- Length
- 40 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Peace, Love, Death & Loss
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
- 40 lines · 5 octaves
- Line length
- Lines run 7-9 syllables (median 8), consistent with tetrameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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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
- PoetryDBThe Dean of Faculty: A new Ballad 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 2401bc8da0022f77…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.