Compare and contrast Dudley Randall's poem "The Ballad of Birmingham" to “Sir Patrick Spens” in terms of structure and subject matter.

Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham” can be compared
and contrasted to the traditional popular ballad “Sir Patrick Spens” in a number of
ways, particularly with regard to structure and themes.  Relevant comparisons and
contrasts include the
following:

• CONTRAST:
  “Sir Patrick Spens” is a longer poem, consisting of eleven stanzas rather
  than eight.


• COMPARISON AND CONTRAST:
  Both poems feature four-line stanzas that rhyme, but whereas the “Spens”
  stanzas rhyme a/b/a/b, the stanzas in Randall’s poem rhyme a/b/c/b. The “Spens” lines
  alternate in length by the number of syllables as follows: 8/6/8/6.  The number of
  syllables per line in the first three stanzas of Randall’s poem are less regularly
  predictable: 8/6/8/7, 8/7/8/7, 8/8/8/6.
  


• COMPARISON: Both poems
  feature dialogue, particularly in their first two stanzas. In the first stanza someone
  asks a question, and in the second stanza someone answers that question. Both poems
  feature narrators who comment on the events the poems
  depict.


• CONTRAST: The
  speaking characters in “Spens” are males; the speaking characters in Randall’s poem are
  females.  There are two speakers in Randall’s poem, but there are four in “Spens.”
  


• COMPARISON AND CONTRAST:
  Both poems deal with the deaths of various persons, but whereas the
  deaths in “Spens” are anticipated by some of the characters, the deaths in Randall’s
  poem are not. The dead persons in “Spens” are adults who die after deciding to obey the
  king’s orders; the dead persons in the Randall poem are children who make no choice to
  put themselves in an obviously dangerous
  situation.


• COMPARISON: Both
  poems feature references to the combs:

readability="13">

O, lang, lang may the ladies
stand,

Wi’ their gold kembs [combs] in their hair . . .
(“Spens,”
37-38)

........................................................................

readability="7">

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,

And bathed rose petal sweet . . . (Randall,
17-18)

• COMPARISON:
  Both poems deal with tragic
  outcomes.