My first attempt at a four-line stanza ballad

He looked upon her grave in fear
She had promised her return
Surely there was no way she might
But yet his heart did yearn

His heart beat drummed in his ear
Pain, blood pounding his head
His stomach flipped and churned, pure chaos
Feelings of fear and dread

The earth began to move and shift
A hand appeared reaching out
Fingers curled; nails dirty and worn
He fled, giving a shout

The ballad is divided into stanzas, each with four lines, which is also known as a quatrain. The rhyme scheme can be ABAB or ABCB, which means that the second and fourth lines always rhyme together. 

The first and third line of the stanza comes in iambic tetrameter. Iambic means that every second syllable is accented, while tetrameter means that each line contains four beats (pairs of accented and unaccented syllables). The second and last line is iambic trimeter, which means that they each have three beats.

Notice that both lines one and three have eight syllables, with every second syllable stressed. The second and fourth lines have six syllables each, also with every second syllable stressed.

Roy Richard 2023