Explore Poems: Ballad

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Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
By Federico García Lorca
1.
La cogida y la muerte

A las cinco de la tarde.
Eran las cinco en punto de la tarde.
Un niño trajo la blanca sábana
a las cinco de la tarde.
Una espuerta de cal ya prevenida
a las cinco de la tarde.
Lo demás era muerte...
Love
Heartache & Loss
Nature
Animals
Social Commentaries
History & Politics
Living
Death
Sorrow & Grieving
Relationships
Friends & Enemies
Verse Forms
Ballad
Stanza Forms
Mixed
Quatrain
Techniques
Refrain
Types/Modes
Elegy
Grief
+ 14 more
To Certain Critics
By Countee Cullen
Then call me traitor if you must,
Shout treason and default!
Say I betray a sacred trust
Aching beyond this vault.
I’ll bear your censure as your praise,
For never shall the clan
Confine my singing to its ways
Beyond the ways of man.

No racial option narrows...
Social Commentaries
Verse Forms
Ballad
Anger
Saturday’s Child
By Countee Cullen
Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
   With the stars strung for a rattle;
I cut my teeth as the black raccoon—
   For implements of battle.

Some are swaddled in silk and down,
   And heralded by a star;
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
   On...
Living
Parenthood
Relationships
Family & Ancestors
Birth
Verse Forms
Ballad
Anxiety & Insecurity
Disappointment
Grief
Melancholy & Despair
+ 4 more
Incident
By Countee Cullen
Once riding in old Baltimore,
   Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
   Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
   And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
   His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the...
Social Commentaries
Race & Ethnicity
Living
Youth
Verse Forms
Ballad
Anger
Disappointment
A Brown Girl Dead
By Countee Cullen
With two white roses on her breasts,
   White candles at head and feet,
Dark Madonna of the grave she rests;
   Lord Death has found her sweet.

Her mother pawned her wedding ring
   To lay her out in white;
She’d be so proud she’d dance and sing
   To...
Living
Death
Parenthood
Funerals
Verse Forms
Ballad
Grief
If-ing
By Langston Hughes
If I had some small change
I’d buy me a mule,
Get on that mule and
Ride like a fool.

If I had some greenbacks
I’d buy me a Packard,
Fill it up with gas and
Drive that baby backward.

If I had a million
I’d get me a...
Social Commentaries
Class
Money & Economics
Living
Life Choices
Verse Forms
Ballad
Anxiety & Insecurity
Disappointment
+ 2 more
Easy Boogie
By Langston Hughes
Down in the bass
That steady beat
Walking walking walking
Like marching feet.

Down in the bass
That easy roll,
Rolling like I like it
In my soul.

Riffs, smears, breaks.

Hey, Lawdy, Mama!
Do you hear what I said?
Easy like I rock it
In my bed!
Social Commentaries
Cities & Urban Life
Popular Culture
Arts & Sciences
Music
Verse Forms
Ballad
Anxiety & Insecurity
Joy & Contentment
+ 2 more
Yarrow Visited. September, 1814
By William Wordsworth
And is this—Yarrow?—This the stream
Of which my fancy cherished,
So faithfully, a waking dream?
An image that hath perished!
O that some Minstrel's harp were near,
To utter notes of gladness,
And chase this silence from the air,
That fills my heart with sadness!

Yet why?—a silvery...
Nature
Landscapes & Pastorals
Seas, Rivers, & Streams
Verse Forms
Ballad
Stanza Forms
Rhymed Stanza
Meters
Common Measure
+ 2 more
Yarrow Revisited
By William Wordsworth
The gallant Youth, who may have gained,
Or seeks, a "winsome Marrow,"
Was but an Infant in the lap
When first I looked on Yarrow;
Once more, by Newark's Castle-gate
Long left without...
Nature
Seas, Rivers, & Streams
Living
Health & Illness
Relationships
Friends & Enemies
Arts & Sciences
Philosophy
Verse Forms
Ballad
Stanza Forms
Rhymed Stanza
Meters
Common Measure
+ 7 more
Ballad of the Moon Moon
By Federico García Lorca
Translated By Sarah Arvio
Moon came to the forge
in her petticoat of nard
The boy looks and looks
the boy looks at the Moon
In the turbulent air
Moon lifts up her arms
showing — pure and sexy —
her beaten-tin breasts
Run Moon run Moon Moon
If the gypsies came
white rings and white necklaces
they...
Love
Desire & Passion
Nature
Stars, Planets, Heavens
Activities
Travels & Journeys
Verse Forms
Ballad
Techniques
Epigraph
Anxiety & Insecurity
+ 4 more
Casey at the Bat
By Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of...
Living
Activities
Sports & Outdoor Activities
Verse Forms
Ballad
Disappointment
Humor
Classics
Sports and Outdoor Activities
Timeless Treasures
+ 3 more
The Cremation of Sam McGee
By Robert W. Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
      By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
      That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
      But the queerest they ever did see
Was that...
Nature
Winter
Weather
Living
Death
Activities
Travels & Journeys
Arts & Sciences
Humor & Satire
Christmas
Verse Forms
Ballad
Stanza Forms
Rhymed Stanza
Meters
Common Measure
Humor
+ 10 more
Annabel Lee
By Edgar Allan Poe
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;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
   Than to...
Love
Classic Love
Heartache & Loss
Infatuation & Crushes
Romantic Love
Nature
Seas, Rivers, & Streams
Living
Death
Relationships
Mythology & Folklore
Horror
Verse Forms
Ballad
+ 7 more
So We'll Go No More a Roving
By Lord Byron (George Gordon)
So, we'll go no more a roving
   So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
   And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
   And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
   And...
Love
Realistic & Complicated
Romantic Love
Living
Separation & Divorce
Sorrow & Grieving
Time & Brevity
Relationships
Activities
Travels & Journeys
Farewells & Good Luck
Verse Forms
Ballad
Meters
Common Measure
Boredom
Disappointment
+ 10 more
A Red, Red Rose
By Robert Burns
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.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
   So deep in luve am I;...
Love
Classic Love
Desire & Passion
Romantic Love
Nature
Trees & Flowers
Living
Time & Brevity
Relationships
Arts & Sciences
Music
Anniversary
Engagement
Weddings
Valentine's Day
Verse Forms
Ballad
Meters
Common Measure
+ 12 more
And If I Did, What Then?
By George Gascoigne
“And if I did, what then?
Are you aggriev’d therefore?
The sea hath fish for every man,
And what would you have more?”

Thus did my mistress once,
Amaze my mind with doubt;
And popp’d a question for the...
Love
Desire & Passion
Realistic & Complicated
Living
Relationships
Men & Women
Verse Forms
Ballad
Stanza Forms
Rhymed Stanza
Meters
Common Measure
Anger
Anxiety & Insecurity
Blame
Optimism
+ 9 more
The Highwayman
By Alfred Noyes
PART ONE

The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
         Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to...
Love
Heartache & Loss
Infatuation & Crushes
Romantic Love
Social Commentaries
Crime & Punishment
Relationships
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Verse Forms
Ballad
Stanza Forms
Rhymed Stanza
Being Oneself
+ 7 more
The Haunted Oak
By Paul Laurence Dunbar
Pray why are you so bare, so bare,
   Oh, bough of the old oak-tree;
And why, when I go through the shade you throw,
   Runs a shudder over me?

My leaves were green as the best, I trow,
   And sap ran free in my veins,
But...
Nature
Trees & Flowers
Social Commentaries
Crime & Punishment
Race & Ethnicity
Living
Death
Verse Forms
Ballad
Meters
Common Measure
+ 4 more
Mr. Nobody
By Anonymous
I know a funny little man,
    As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
    In everybody’s house!
There’s no one ever sees his face,
    And yet we all agree
That every plate we...
Relationships
Home Life
Verse Forms
Ballad
Disappointment
Humor
The Shooting of Dan McGrew
By Robert W. Service
A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon;
The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune;
Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew,
And watching his luck was his light-o'-love,...
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Verse Forms
Ballad

p1Ballad of the Moon Moon

Ballad of the Moon Moon