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Ballads developed from 14th and 15th-century minstrelsy. The minstrel, a traveling performer, could be a musician, acrobat, singer, or any other type of entertainer. As the decades and centuries progressed, the word “minstrel” narrowed to mean someone who sang songs. However, the connection to the ballad is evident when one considers that minstrels usually performed songs that told stories of mythical people, history, and folk customs to the commoners within an area.
The Romantic period saw a massive revival in the ballad form as poets began to appreciate poetry written for the masses – and not just the super-elite aristocrats.
Ballads, usually have thirteen lines with varying rhyme schemes, and often have frequent rhyme. This rhyming makes the poem more musical and memorable. Plus, as folk songs, ballads are usually suitable lyrics for dance tunes.
So, whether you’re in the mood for a legendary tale, a story about a historical event, or the legend of a mythical hero, these best ballads of all time will not disappoint.
‘The Solitary Reaper’ by William Wordsworth is a recollection of the poet’s emotional experience as he listens to a woman singing in the fields.
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
‘Horatius’ by Thomas Babington Macaulay is a long narrative ballad about Horatius Cocles, a legendary hero from early Roman history.
LARS Porsena of Clusium
By the Nine Gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
‘The Three Ravens’ is an Old English folk ballad in the songbook ‘Melismata’ compiled by Thomas Ravenscroft in 1611.
There were three rauens sat on a tree,
downe a downe, hay downe, hay downe,
There were three rauens sat on a tree,
with a downe,
In ‘A Red, Red Rose,’ Robert Burns lyrically celebrates enduring love, promising everlasting commitment amidst a temporary farewell.
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
‘Annabel Lee’ by Edgar Allan Poe is a lyrical narrative ballad about a man haunted by his lost lover, Annabel Lee.
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
‘For a’ That and a’ That’ by Robert Burns describes man’s true worth as not being defined by wealth, position, or possessions.
Is there, for honest poverty,
That hings his head, an' a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
‘Sumer is icumen in’ is a song written in the Wessex dialect of Middle English. The brilliance of the composition lies in the use of a refrain that resonates with the consecutive cooing of the Cuckoo.
Summer has arrived,
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
Wordsworth’s ‘The Tables Turned’ asks readers to quit books and rediscover the natural world’s beauty and wisdom.
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books;
Or surely you'll grow double:
Up! up! my Friend, and clear your looks;
Why all this toil and trouble?
‘The Ballad of Reading Gaol’ is a scathing critique of the penal system and an exploration of complex human emotions.
He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’ by John Keats is an intriguing narrative that explores death, decay, and love with a supernatural aura.
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.
‘Lord Randall’ shows a mother and son’s conversation about what he did that day and ate for dinner, which takes a dark turn.
"Oh where ha'e ye been, Lord Randall my son?
O where ha'e ye been, my handsome young man?"
"I ha'e been to the wild wood: mother, make my bed soon,
For I’m weary wi' hunting, and fain wald lie down."
‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is a lyrical ballad narrated by an old sailor about a mysterious sea journey.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.
Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’ narrates the tale of the cursed Lady entrapped in a tower on the island of Shalott, who meets a tragic end.
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
‘I have never seen “Volcanoes”’ by Emily Dickinson is a clever, complex poem that compares humans and their emotions to a volcano’s eruptive power.
I have never seen "Volcanoes"—
But, when Travellers tell
How those old – phlegmatic mountains
Usually so still –
‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a narrative poem about a shipwreck and human vanity.
It was the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintry sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,
To bear him company.
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