A Ballad Thread

[Nacian]

Taken up from OX mentioning Ballad I thought maybe we could start one?

I found and I quote:

''Most, but not all, northern and west European ballads are written in ballad stanzas or quatrains (four-line stanzas) of alternating lines of iambic (an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable) tetrameter (eight syllables) and iambic trimeter (six syllables), known as ballad meter. Usually, only the second and fourth line of a quatrain are rhymed (in the scheme a, b, c, b), which has been taken to suggest that, originally, ballads consisted of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables.^[3] As can be seen in this stanza from ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet''

The horse| fair Ann|et rode| upon|
He amb|led like| the wind|,
With sil|ver he| was shod| before,
With burn|ing gold| behind|.^[

[Phyllis]

I really like this new idea,
For ballads sound so neat.
This form reminds me of a horse
With a cowboy on its seat.

He'll bounce along a cattle trail
With easy sway and swing,
And as he rides along his way
He'll have a song to sing.

[Nacian]

brilliant stuff Phyllis you are a natural!