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Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Chapter 405: A Tippling Ballad
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About This Book

The collection assembles lyrical songs, narrative poems, satirical pieces, epistles, epitaphs, and fragments that shift between convivial drinking verses, tender laments, and comic storytelling. Many lyrics were shaped to traditional airs and preserve vernacular speech, while longer works portray rural labor, domestic scenes, and compassionate encounters with animals. Satire targets religious hypocrisy and social pretension, and several poems take a direct, personal tone of moral reflection or affectionate address. The selections alternate moods and forms, emphasizing melodic phrasing and a versatile technical range.

A Tippling Ballad

On the Duke of Brunswick’s Breaking up his Camp, and the defeat of the Austrians, by Dumourier, November 1792.

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.