Ballad

Type: refrain, structure, meter, rhyme, stanzaic.

Description: Short narrative poem compromising of quatrains. Usually written in ballad meter of alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. The rhyme scheme is usually alternating lines. Ballads have a refrain stanza.

Schema:

xX xX xX xA (Refrain)
xX xX xB
xX xX xX xA
xX xX xB

xX xX xX xc
xX xX xd
xX xX xX xc
xX xX xd

Stanza Length: quatrain.

© Jem Farmer 2008, all rights reserved.