| 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. |
| ballad stanza n. A four-line stanza often used in ballads, rhyming in the second and fourth lines and having four metrical feet in the first and third lines and three in the second and fourth. |
ballad stanza
a verse stanza common in English ballads that consists of two lines in ballad metre, usually printed as a four-line stanza with a rhyme scheme of abcb, as in The Wife of Usher's Well, which begins: There lived a wife at Usher's Well, And a wealthy wife was she;She had three stout and stalwart sons,And sent them o'er the sea.They hadna been a week from her,A week but barely ane,Whan word came to the carlin wife,That her three sons were gane.
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