That was fun. As Sam notes, the form evokes archaizing Romantic ballads, with their eyes fixed on the Middle Ages, as Miniver's eyes also are. An immediate formal precedent might be Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci, which has certain resemblances to MC (i.e., are drink and a longing for days of yore like Keats's fairy siren?). The short final line, combined with the wry epigrammatic pointedness of each stanza, has an effect of popping the nostalgic balloon.
C
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