9 Best Ballad Meter Poems

Ballad meter alternates lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, typically following an ABCB rhyme scheme. It has four-line stanzas (quatrains) with a steady, songlike rhythm. Common in folk and narrative poetry, ballad meter helps convey emotion and story with simplicity, repetition, and a strong oral tradition feel.

Poem Explorer Poetry Archives

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Form:

Genre:

"> 75/100

Ballad of Birmingham

by Dudley Randall

Ballad of Birmingham’ by Dudley Randall is a moving narrative of the last moments of a little girl murdered in a church bombing.

The poem uses ballad meter, which mixes lines with four beats and lines with three beats. The first and third lines of each stanza usually have four stressed syllables, while the second and fourth have three. This pattern keeps the rhythm smooth and familiar, similar to a hymn or folk song. It helps the poem sound calm and controlled at first, which makes the sudden shift to tragedy feel even more heartbreaking and real.

“Mother dear, may I go downtown

Instead of out to play,

And march the streets of Birmingham

In a Freedom March today?”

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Form:

Genre:

"> 73/100

We Are Seven

by William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth was certainly not without his share of tragedy, and this poem, “We Are Seven”, is one which evokes this tragic feeling.

The poem uses ballad meter: lines that gently bounce between longer and shorter beats. Most stanzas have four beats in the first and third lines (iambic tetrameter) and three in the second and fourth (iambic trimeter). This pattern gives the poem a musical, storytelling feel—kind of like a lullaby or a folk song. It moves naturally, making it easy to read aloud and easy to feel. The rhythm mirrors a conversation or a child’s speech: steady, clear, and full of heart. It helps the emotions stay grounded and real.

———A simple Child,

That lightly draws its breath,

And feels its life in every limb,

What should it know of death?

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Form:

Genre:

"> 71/100

Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave

by Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy’s ‘Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?’ is a darkly ironic ballad that explores death, the illusion of eternal remembrance.

The poem’s meter blends iambic tetrameter and trimeter, producing a ballad-like rhythm. This familiar sing-song quality contrasts with the morbid content, heightening irony and enhancing the speaker’s misguided hope throughout the poem.

"Ah, are you digging on my grave,

My loved one? — planting rue?" —

"No: yesterday he went to wed

One of the brightest wealth has bred..."

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Form:

Genre:

"> 69/100

39

by Henry Lawson

’39’ is a poem in which the narrator looks back on his life while eagerly awaiting his fortieth birthday and the years that will follow.

The rough ballad meter allows the poem to feel like a song, and the repeated refrains add to this. The poem is written in a celebratory manner, and writing it in this meter makes it seem even more as though it is told in a voice of celebration. There is a sense of excitement and anticipation in this poem that builds throughout, and this is greatly helped by the meter in which it is written.

I only woke this morning

To find the world is fair —

I'm going on for forty,

With scarcely one grey hair;

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Form:

Genre:

"> 66/100

Part V: The Rime of The Ancient Mariner

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In ‘Part V: The Rime of The Ancient Mariner,’ the dead crew rises, guided by spirits, in a quest for redemption. Supernatural meets divine.

The poem uses ballad meter, which means it often switches between lines with four beats and lines with three beats. This pattern makes the poem sound like a song and helps keep the storytelling flowing. The regular rhythm gives it a musical feel without making it too strict or formal. Since this meter fits well with the ballad form and is used throughout the poem, it is a strong match and clearly helps shape how the poem reads.

The other was a softer voice,

As soft as honey-dew:

Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,

And penance more will do.'

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Mothers and Daughters

Form:

Genre:

"> 64/100

A Sunday Morning Tragedy

by Thomas Hardy

‘A Sunday Morning Tragedy’ reveals a tragic attempt to avert shame, ending in the daughter’s death and the mother’s deep remorse.

This poem uses ballad meter, which means each stanza usually has four lines that alternate between four beats and three beats. The rhythm feels natural and smooth when read aloud, almost like a song, even though the subject is heavy. This kind of meter is perfect for storytelling because it allows the lines to move quickly while still holding weight. Hardy uses this to let the emotions rise while keeping the structure clear and consistent.

I bore a daughter flower-fair,

In Pydel Vale, alas for me;

I joyed to mother one so rare,

But dead and gone I now would be.

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Form:

Genre:

"> 64/100

Nurse’s Song

by William Blake

The poem ‘Nurse’s Song’ is a description of an unpretentious encounter between a nurse and a group of children who are playing on a hill.

The poem closely follows ballad meter, which means alternating lines of four and three beats, usually in iambic rhythm. This meter is common in songs and traditional poems, and it fits Blake’s style in this piece. The ballad meter helps create a calm and steady pace, like a story being told out loud. The rhythm is easy to read and gentle on the ear, which matches the mood of a quiet moment between adult and child.

When voices of children are heard on the green,

And laughing is heard on the hill,

My heart is at rest within my breast,

And everything else is still.

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Form:

Genre:

"> 61/100

One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted

by Emily Dickinson

‘One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted’ by Emily Dickinson explores the nature of the human mind. She presents the reader with images of mental and physical threats and how they can be confronted.

In this poem, Dickinson employs a variation of common meter with iambic rhythm, but deliberately disrupts it. Odd lines extend to 9-11 syllables with feminine endings, while even lines alternate between dimeter, trimeter, and monometer (creating the pattern of long-short-long-short lines characteristic of ballad meter, but with irregular syllable counts).

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,

One need not be a house;

The brain has corridors surpassing

Material place.

PDF Guide

Nationality:

Themes:

Emotions:

Topics:

Forms:

Genres:

"> 57/100

In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations’

by Thomas Hardy

‘In Time of “The Breaking of Nations”‘ features three pastoral vignettes, Hardy reframes war as a passing disturbance rather than a defining rupture.

The poem is a good example of a ballad meter. With minor variations, each four-line stanza follows a classic alternating rhythm: the first and third lines are in iambic tetrameter , while the second and fourth lines are in iambic trimeter. The use of this traditional folk form emphasizes the lasting and universal nature of love and labor in contrast to the transient chaos of war.

Only a man harrowing clods

In a slow silent walk

With an old horse that stumbles and nods

Half asleep as they stalk.

Home » Collection » Ballad Meter Poems

9 Best Ballad Meter Poems

General

Poetry+

Discover

Useful Links

9 Best Ballad Meter Poems

by Dudley Randall

by William Wordsworth

by Thomas Hardy

by Henry Lawson

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

by Thomas Hardy

by William Blake

by Emily Dickinson

by Thomas Hardy

Narrow Your Search

We Look Deep into Poetry

General

Poetry+

Discover

Useful Links