USAGE: English, Biblical, Biblical Latin, Biblical Greek, Ancient Greek, Greek Mythology
Term: Ballad. Strictly, a ballad is a form of poetry that alternates lines of four and three beats, often in quatrains, rhymed abab, and often telling a story-the anonymous poem 'Sir Patrick Spens' and Wordsworth's A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal demonstrate this well.erm: Ballad. Strictly, a ballad is a form of poetry that alternates lines of four and three beats, often in quatrains, rhymed abab, and often telling a story-the anonymous poem 'Sir Patrick Spens' and Wordsworth's A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal demonstrate this well.
a four-line stanza consisting of unrhymed first and third lines in iambic tetrameter and rhymed second and fourth lines in iambic trimeter, often used in ballads. Origin of ballad stanza Expand.