Ballad stanza

Ballad stanza is a term in prosody for a quatrain, ie four-line stanza of a ballad. It is composed in iambic metre. The first and the third lines are unrhymed, while the second and third lines are rhymed. The first and the third lines have four metrical feet, and the second and the fourth has three.

For example:
The king sits in Dumferling towne,
Drinking the blue-red wine:
"O whar will I get a guid sailor,
To sail this schip of mine?

Note: towne, whar, guid, and schip in the example above are old spellings of town, where, good, and ship respectively.