Ballad: A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. The story of a ballad can originate from a wide range of subject matter but most frequently deals with folk-lore or popular legends. They are written in straight-forward verse, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Most ballads are suitable for singing and, while sometimes varied in practice, are generally written in ballad meter, i.e., alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming. NOTE: Many old-time ballads were written and performed by minstrels attached to noblemen's courts. Folk ballads are of unknown origin and are usually lacking in artistic finish. Meant to be sung, but often studied as poetry, the texts are independent of the melodies, which are often used for a number of different ballads. Because they are handed down by oral tradition, folk ballads are subject to variations and continual change. Literary ballads combining the natures of epic and lyric poetry, as Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci, or Scott's Jock o' Hazeldean, are written by known authors, often in the style and form of the folk ballad. (See also broadside ballad, lay, tragedy) (Compare chanson de geste, common measure, epopee, epos, heroic quatrain)