Analysis of Adam Henry’s ballad:

The structure of Adam Henry’s ballad is made up by 5 quatrains. The rhyme scheme is AABB CCDD EEFF… . The speaking voice is a first person narrator, who adopts Adam’s point of view.

In the first quatrain Adam presents the previous influence of Jehovah’s belief on his life. He explains that he grew up in a strict moral code of life: “I’d been told on Sundays to live life by the rules”. In addition he provides clear information about the way he feels following the Jehovah’s Witness rules: “foolish and troubled by a dream”. The initial imagery of the “wooden cross” dragged by him makes the reader understand that such way of life implies a sacrifice and reading the following lines the reader also understands that it is not worth for him.

In the second quatrain Adam goes on presenting what means living following strict moral rules right from his experience. The second quatrain opens with the imagery of the “wooden cross”, which now is connoted as “heavy as lead”. Therefore it produces physical harm on him that may reflect the psychic suffering due to sharing his life with such rigid rules, instead of living in the way he would like to live. Such tension is underlined by the contrast between “the stream was merry and dancing and sunlight dance around”, that may stands for Adam’s will and aspiration, and “ but I must keep on walking, with eyes fixed on the ground”. The use of the modal verb “must” highlights that he has no decision in the matter of how to live his life.

In the third quatrain Adam tells about his breaking of the rules: he accepts the advice of a “fish” that “rose out of the water”. Therefore he instinctively throws his cross in the water in order “to be free”.
In other words, Adam had no intention to do it without the approval of someone else: the fish is an excuse which enables him to do his best. Before the encounter with the fish, he was too weak for breaking the rules alone. Therefore the fish is the personification of Fiona Maye, the High Court Judge, who allows him to have a new approach towards life.

Indeed, in the fourth quatrain the “fish” turns into “she”. Following her advice, Adam is “in a wondrous state of bliss” and he can count on her support: “she leaned upon my shoulder and gave the sweetest kiss”. The use of the superlative adjective “the sweetest” connotes Adam’s point of view about his relationship with her. Now he puts on the focus her instead of God. She is the only one person who can gave him pleasure and satisfaction. Nevertheless “she dived to the icy bottom where she never will be found” and he feels sad. In the last part of the quatrain Adam says that now she has left him alone.

In the last quatrain Adam tells that the one person who has made him react in front of the strict moral rules of his religion is  considered as a negative temptation from the religious point of view. Indeed, Jesus blames her to be “the voice of Satan” and “her kiss was the kiss of Judas”, therefore her kiss betrayed his name. In the last quatrain Adam plays with imagery and references taken from the Bible which mark the religious point of view. Religion presents the meeting with Fiona as a transgression - something wrong.