Roundel (poetry)

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A roundel is a form of verse used in English language poetry devised by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909). It is a variation of the French Rondeau form. It makes use of refrains, repeated according to a certain stylized pattern. A roundel consists of nine lines each having the same number of syllables, plus a refrain after the third line and after the last line. The refrain must be identical with the beginning of the first line: it may be a half-line, and rhymes with the second line. It has three stanzas and its rhyme scheme is as follows: A B A R ; B A B ; A B A R where R is the refrain.

Swinburne had published a book A Century of Roundels ^[1]. He dedicated these poems to his friend Christina Rossetti, who then started writing roundels herself.

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Swinburne’s poem A BABY'S DEATH contains seven roundels, which follow all the above rules. Here is the fourth roundel, which was set to music by the English composer Edward Elgar:

The little eyes that never knew (A)

Light other than of dawning skies, (B)

What new life now lights up anew (A)

The little eyes ? (R)

Who knows but on their sleep may rise (B)

Such light as never heaven let through (A)

To lighten earth from Paradise? (B)

No storm, we know, may change the blue (A)

Soft heaven that haply death descries (B)

No tears, like these in ours, bedew (A)

The little eyes. (R)

Swinburne’s first Roundel was called THE ROUNDEL:

A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,

With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,

That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear

A roundel is wrought.

Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught -

Love, laughter, or mourning--remembrance of rapture or fear -

That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.

As a bird's quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hear

Pause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught,

So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,

A roundel is wrought.

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