Ballad
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
A typical ballad is a plot-driven song, with one or more characters hurriedly unfurling events leading to a dramatic conclusion.
the ballad is often constructed in quatrain stanzas, each line containing as few as three or four stresses and rhyming either the second and fourth lines, or all alternating lines.
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
A ballad tells a story quickly, with characters moving through events toward a dramatic end. It often uses quatrains with three or four stresses a line, rhyming the second and fourth lines or all alternating lines. The example below is the opening of a ballad in the 1798 edition quoted with it.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
A public-domain example
Public domain in the US: the ebook's front matter prints 1798, before 1931, as the front matter quoted below shows. Only the opening lines are shown. The example illustrates the form; the rules above come from the glossary, not from the poem.
It is an ancyent Marinere,
And he stoppeth one of three:
Project Gutenberg ebook #9622 · our check found this text on October 31, 2026
LYRICAL BALLADS, WITH A FEW OTHER POEMS. LONDON PRINTED FOR J. & A. ARCH, GRACECHURCH-STREET. 1798