Dear Reader,

I had written this ballad with a lot of work and if are reading this, hopefully after having read through the entire ballad, I am thankful  to you. I loved writing it out, have poured my heart into it  and some of the lines leave me very happy. 

I had earlier posted this on another site - IF and it was one of my earliest works. I have done some minor editing and corrected a few typos, but have not made any changes, per se. 

I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I loved writing it. If you could leave a comment, it would make me even happier, for as I said, all feedback, good or bad, is always welcome.

love,

Nyna

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1.Ballad

A Ballad is a type of poem that is sometimes set to music. Ballads have a long history and are found in many cultures. The ballad actually began as a folk song and continues today in popular music. Many love songs today can be considered ballads. A typical ballad consists of stanzas that contain a quatrain, or four poetic lines. The meter or rhythm of each line is usually iambic, which means it has one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In ballads, there are usually eight or six syllables in a line.

Like any poem, some ballads follow this form and some don't, but almost all ballads are narrative, which means they tell a story. Because the ballad was originally set to music, some ballads have a refrain, or a repeated chorus, just like a song does. Similarly, the rhyme scheme is often ABAB because of the musical quality of this rhyme pattern.

I have attempted to follow the rules of rhyme (the epilogue and prologues are sonnets -the Shakespearean or English sonnet with fourteen lines which consists of three quatrains and one couplet), the first three sections are quatrain, the last is a quintain ( five poetic lines) albeit with a different rhyme pattern for each. I have completely disregarded the rules for the rhythm, any adherence is purely accidental.

2. Fire and Ice

This phrase is from the poem of the same name written by Robert Frost - for those interested, I have reproduced it below:

"Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I have tasted of desire,

I hold with those who favour fire.

But if I had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate,

to have to say that for destruction, Ice,

Is always great,

And will suffice."

3. Love to hatred turned

The full quote is as follows

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"

Spoken by Zara in Act III, Scene VIII of the play - The Mourning Bride' by William Congreve (1697). The line has become famous, albeit frequently in misquotation, and is usually paraphrased as "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"