The BALLAD is a short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. Any form of story may be told as a ballad, ranging from accounts of historical events to fairy tales... Ballads are written in straight-forward verse. Most ballads are suitable for singing and tells the story of love.

Ballads, while sometimes varied in practice, are generally written in ballad meter, which means alternating the lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming.

Example from Noelle Boston:

excerpt from I Lov’d a Blossoming Youth One Time

I lov’d a blossoming youth one time,
right many years ago;
His well-made face was soft and fine,
and white like flawless snow.

His eyes were orbs of welkin clear,
a blue too fresh for grief,
His touch was light like morning dew
that trembles on the leaf.