17 pages • 34 minutes read
Ballad
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Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“Ballad” has an inconsistent meter and no detectable rhyme scheme. The first and last stanzas are quatrains, or four-line stanzas, common in specific types of ballads. The quatrains have an even number of lines, which often portray an unstressed/stressed, or iambic, pattern, that gives off a musical quality. The rhythm of this poem also comes alive through the use of alliteration, or repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words, and assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds. An example includes the “g” and “e” sounds in the following lines: “the grass excreting her / green wax is love” (Lines 7-8). Additionally, the lines of both quatrains repeat with word tweaks or changes, making the quatrains feel like a refrain, or a mantra of the speaker. The two middle stanzas, nine and eight lines, respectively, add visual imagery to explain love and tell the personal love story of the speaker, as storytelling is a common feature of ballads.
Repetition
As mentioned above, repetition is a feature of the “Ballad” poem. Sometimes the repetition is precise, and other times slight tweaks take place in the repeated words: “you are so young / and i too old to learn of love” (Lines 3-4) first appears in the first stanza and then again in the second stanza of the poem. The structure of these two lines changes to three lines in the second stanza: “you are too young / for love / and i too old” (Lines 11-13). In the final stanza, the repetition is exactly as in the first stanza. These repeated lines constitute the main point of the poem. The other lines that are tweaked and not repeated exactly are the first two lines of the poem: “forgive me if i laugh / you are so sure of love” (Lines 1-2). These lines transform in the final stanza to, “forgive me if i smile / young heiress of a naked dream” (Lines 22-23). A laugh becomes a quieter smile, and the speaker gives her listener a descriptor. The change in words demonstrates the speaker’s empathy toward her listener, whom she likely sees as a younger version of herself.
Imagery
Visual imagery is the most prominent form of imagery in “Ballad.” The second stanza features visual examples in the form of metaphors and personification. The speaker describes love as a grand but perhaps destructive visual and aural experience with “the rain exploding” (Line 5). She softens and eroticizes the next visual image: “the grass excreting her / green wax is love” (Lines 7-8). This second image in the series sets the tone for the personal sexual story that the speaker shares in the third stanza, especially because the grass is personified as a woman. The greenness is acute in this image and provokes the reader’s imagination because the image is not observable to the naked eye. The last visual image in the series is of “stones remembering / past steps” (Lines 9 -10). As in the second visual image, one cannot observe “stones remembering” (Line 9) but must conjure the image within one’s mind. Giving the stones the human quality of remembering empowers them as a strong poetic image. These three visual images combine in the second stanza to show how love can manifest, building up the expectations in the young listener only for the speaker to offer a rebuttal: “but you. you are too young” (Line 11).
The poem also includes auditory imagery in the first line, via the speaker’s laugh. Laughing can take many forms: jovial, mocking, nervous, unrestrained, and more. The speaker’s laugh does not deter from the message in the poem; instead, it keeps the listener present as the speaker recounts her personal cautionary tale.
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