Forms of Poetry (week 6):

Today we studied the ballad/lyrical ballad...including this treasure by William Wordsworth:

A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seem'd a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
(1800)

Even though it is only two quatrains long, it is jam-packed with a myriad of emotion and skill. It literally blows my mind.

Typical rhyme scheme(s) of the ballad stanza:
abab or abcb

Also studied:
"I heard a Fly buzz" (Dickinson)
"Ballad of Birmingham" (Randall)
"Bagpipe Music" (MacNeice)

~~J