The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within

RONDEAU REDOUBLÉTHE FIRST FOUR LINES OF RONDEAU REDOUBLÉAre chosen with especial skill and careFor each one has a vital role to playIn turn they each a heavy burden share.Disaster comes to those who don’t prepareThe opening stanza in an artful waySo do, dear friends, I beg of you, bewareThe first four lines of rondeau redoublé.That warning made, it’s pretty safe to sayThis ancient form’s a simply wrought affair,So long as all your rhymes, both B and AAre chosen with especial skill and care;For you’ll need rhymes and plenty left to spare–A dozen words, arranged in neat arrayThat’s six, yes six in every rhyming pair,For each one has a vital role to play.So long as you these simple rules obeyYou’ll have no trouble with the form, I swear.The first four lines your efforts will repay,In turn they each a heavy burden share,

THE FIRST FOUR LINES.

Here, as I hope my abominable but at least accurately self-referential example makes clear, each line of Stanza 1 forms in turn an end-refrain to the next four stanzas. As in the standard rondeau, the opening hemistich is repeated to form a final coda or mini-envoi. Each stanza alternates in rhyme between abab and baba.

Wendy Cope included an excellent example in her collection Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis and here is Dorothy Parker’s charming (and charmingly titled) example ‘Rondeau Redoublé (and Scarcely Worth the Trouble at That)’ which has an excellent coda:THE SAME TO ME are somber days and gay.Though joyous dawns the rosy morn, and bright,Because my dearest love is gone awayWithin my heart is melancholy night.My heart beats low in loneliness, despiteThat riotous Summer holds the earth in sway.In cerements my spirit is bedight;The same to me are somber days and gay.Though breezes in the rippling grasses play,And waves dash high and far in glorious might,I thrill no longer to the sparkling day,Though joyous dawns the rosy morn, and bright.Ungraceful seems to me the swallow’s flight;As well might Heaven’s blue be sullen gray;My soul discerns no beauty in their sightBecause my dearest love is gone away.Let roses fling afar their crimson spray,And virgin daisies splash the fields with white,Let bloom the poppy hotly as it may,Within my heart is melancholy night.And this, oh love, my pitiable plightWhenever from my circling arms you stray;This little world of mine has lost its light…I hope to God, my dear, that you can say

The same to me.

So let us now meet some of the rondeau’s hopeful progeny.

RONDELTheRONDELsends the senses reeling,And who are we to call it dead?Examples that I’ve seen and readHave given me the strongest feelingThat such a form is most appealingTo those whose Heart controls their Head.The rondel sends the senses reeling And who are we to call it dead?Its lines for ever roundly wheeling,Make manifest what can’t be said.From wall to wall and floor to ceilingThe rondel sends the senses reelingAnd who are we to call it dead?