Roundel

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The roundel - pronounced ROWN-derl, IPA: /'raʊn dəl/ - is a verse form which resembles the rondeau in using only a small number of rhymes and in having a refrain.

A roundel has eleven lines arranged in three stanzas, the fourth and the final lines being a refrain which repeats the opening word or words of the first line. The rhyme scheme is ABAB (refrain), BAB, ABAB (refrain) - i.e., there are only two rhymes. The roundel is particularly associated with the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), who in 1883 published A Century of Roundels, a collection of a hundred poems in this verse form.

Roundels have been written in a great variety of metres; and the refrain in the fourth and final lines may repeat more or less of the opening line, sometimes only the first syllable (as in Swinburne's sequence of seven roundels entitled A Dead Friend), sometimes as many as six syllables (as in the final roundel of his sequence entitled The Death of Richard Wagner).

Here as an example of a roundel is Swinburne's .A Singing Lesson:

Far-fetched and dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses,
Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but nought
In a song can be good if the turn of the verse is
Far-fetched and dear-bought.
As the turn of a wave should it sound, and the thought
Ring smooth, and as light as the spray that disperses
Be the gleam of the words for the garb thereof wrought.
Let the soul in it shine through the sound as it pierces
Men's hearts with possession of music unsought;
For the bounties of song are no jealous god's mercies,
Far-fetched and dear-bought.


See further rondeau and rondel.


As well as being a kind of poem, a roundel may also be

  • a circular mark which is painted on the wings and/or fuselage of a military aircraft and serves to identify its nationality;
  • a small round window, or any small round object such as a disc, panel, plate, or the like;
  • a piece of armour in the form of a round plate which had the function of protecting the armpit;
  • (in heraldry) a circular image or device on a coat of arms.