Ballad Poems | Poemist

Popular Ballad Poems

The Man From Snowy River

by Banjo Paterson

There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,

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Clancy Of The Overflow

by Banjo Paterson

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just 'on spec', addressed as follows, 'Clancy, of The Overflow'.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
'Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy

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Ballad Of The Banished And Returning Count

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

OH, enter old minstrel, thou time-honour'd one!
We children are here in the hall all alone,

The portals we straightway will bar.
Our mother is praying, our father is gone

To the forest, on wolves to make war.
Oh sing us a ballad, the tale then repeat,

'Till brother and I learn it right;

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Lucy Gray, Or Solitude

by William Wordsworth

Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
- The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!

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Dejection: An Ode

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms ;
And I fear, I fear, My Master dear !
We shall have a deadly storm.

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence
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I

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Recent Ballad Poems

The Revenuer

by Tammy Darby

It was a cold clear Ozark night.
The stars were bold and shining bright
When the fiddle playing
Caught up with the echoes of the hounds

The full moon was beaming high.
The fog was heavy, wispy, and white
When the revenuer came sneaking around

He had followed the sweet smell.

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Blue Roses

by Yoko Fushigina

Long-long ago, as the ballad recalls,
In the castle with ivy woven in walls,
Under dark velvet skies, in the eye of the Moon
With sweet-scented fragrance blue roses bloomed.
Dare not to come close to the sharp spikes of white
For vermilion potion is kept in inside.
In those azure bushes, with hearts in a hand
A couple of lovers had found their end.
This story is ancient, as old as can be,
But the roses bore it for you and for me...

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A Ballad Of The Two Knights

by Sara Teasdale

Two knights rode forth at early dawn
A-seeking maids to wed,
Said one, "My lady must be fair,
With gold hair on her head."

Then spake the other knight-at-arms:
"I care not for her face,
But she I love must be a dove
For purity and grace."

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The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

by Oscar Wilde

(In memoriam
C. T. W.
Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards
obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire
July 7, 1896)

I

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,

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A Boston Ballad, 1854

by Walt Whitman

TO get betimes in Boston town, I rose this morning early;
Here's a good place at the corner--I must stand and see the show.

Clear the way there, Jonathan!
Way for the President's marshal! Way for the government cannon!
Way for the Federal foot and dragoons--and the apparitions copiously
tumbling.

I love to look on the stars and stripes--I hope the fifes will play
Yankee Doodle.

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