Skip to content
QuillOak

Poetic form

What is a Narrative Poem?

Definition

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a complete story, with characters, plot, and setting.

A narrative poem is poetry that tells a story. Before novels, before print, epics, ballads, and verse tales carried a culture's heroes, warnings, romances, and ghost stories. The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Raven, and many traditional ballads are all narrative poems.

A narrative poem needs what any story needs — someone who wants something, obstacles, and an ending that means something — plus what any poem needs: compression and music. The verse isn't decoration; rhythm builds suspense and makes the story stick in memory, which was always the point.

Structure of a narrative poem

  • Plot, character, and setting — a complete story arc
  • Any meter or rhyme scheme (ballad stanza and couplets are common)
  • Compression: scenes, not chapters

How to write a narrative poem

  1. Outline the story in three beats before writing a line.
  2. Choose a meter that matches the story's pace — galloping for action, slow for grief.
  3. Cut connective tissue; jump between scenes like a film.
  4. Give the ending an image, not a moral.

11 narrative poem examples

Classic and original narrative poem poems, free to read in full.

Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe · 1849

It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,That a maiden there lived whom you may know

41 lines · ballad

Eldorado

Edgar Allan Poe · 1849

Gaily bedight, A gallant knight,In sunshine and in shadow,

24 lines · ballad

The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe · 1845

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore —While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

113 lines · narrative

Paul Revere's Ride

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1860

Listen my children and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;

130 lines · narrative

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1854

Half a league, half a league,Half a league onward,All in the valley of Death

55 lines · narrative

A Visit from St. Nicholas

Clement Clarke Moore · 1823

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the houseNot a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

56 lines · narrative

Because I could not stop for Death

Emily Dickinson · 1890

Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;The carriage held but just ourselves

20 lines · lyric

The Village Blacksmith

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · 1840

Under a spreading chestnut-treeThe village smithy stands;The smith, a mighty man is he,

50 lines · narrative

Abou Ben Adhem

Leigh Hunt · 1834

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,And saw within the moonlight in his room,

18 lines · narrative

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost · 1916

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stood

20 lines · lyric

The Man He Killed

Thomas Hardy · 1902

'Had he and I but metBy some old ancient inn,We should have sat us down to wet

20 lines · lyric

Common questions

What's the difference between narrative and lyric poetry?

Narrative poems tell a story over time; lyric poems capture a feeling or moment. The Raven is narrative; most love poems are lyric.

What are narrative poems?

Narrative poems are poems that tell stories, usually with a speaker, characters, events, and a beginning-to-end movement.

What is the narrative definition in poetry?

In poetry, narrative means story: a poem organized around events rather than only a single feeling, image, or argument.