Hi Mark,
I do like a ballad but, to me, this feels like an early draft of one. For instance, She 'kissed him once, in fun' doesn't seem sufficient cause for him to kill himself, nor does it make them childhood sweethearts.
And hair like a cloud of smoke
That covered her face like the moon's eclipse.
Can't help but think she might be part werewolf.
The lad's heart nearly broke.
Because she was so hairy?
How does
Took the first coach out of town.
square with
"It's in a tiny place called Brinscall" ?
But the shepherd lad swore he'd be true
And Nell would be his bride.
To whom did he swear? To me it seems like their 'relationship' is all in his mind.
He thought to save her from her shame,
So five months and a day
It's snowing be the end, is he sitting in the snow?
I think you're right that there's a poem 'begging to be written' but it needs to have some drama, and this doesn't. The rich man's son isn't sufficiently villainous enough (one might argue that he - and Nell - have a 'little fun' together and then he dumps her and that seems a slightly more grown-up version of what passed between the nameless shepherd and her.)
And he climbed the heights of Winter Hill
And found himself a tree
And hanged himself in the bitter chill
Of pain and misery.
I think this is very good. Can you possibly work backwards from this point? (You certainly don't need the first three verses.)
Just a thought
For long ago, and long ago
And longer than I can tell,
A shepherd lad once lost his heart
To a pretty milkmaid, Nell.
The pair would meet, on Winter Hill,
beneath a trysting tree,
...
RG
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