[Janet Kenny]

Alicia asked us whether we knew any good rondeaux. I have been searching and apart from the Charles D'Orléans's famous one I always stopped halfway through in disappointment at the others I have discovered up to this moment. I am sure I have read some good ones. As soon as I find one I'll post it.
Janet

Charles d’Orléans (1394-1465)

Le temps a laissie son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluye,
Et s'est vestu de brouderie,
De soleil luyant, cler et beau.

Il n'y a beste, ne oyseau,
Qu'en son jargon ne chant ou crie:
Le temps a laissie son manteau
De vent, de froidure et de pluye.

Riviere, fontaine et ruisseau
Portent, en livree jolie,
Gouttes d'argent d'orfaverie,
Chascun s'abille de nouveau.
Le temps a laissie son manteau.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited January 20, 2005).]

[Simon Hunt]

I've always liked this one, but--in spite of its title--I don't think it meets strict definitions of the form.

RONDEAU by Leigh Hunt (no relation)

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

[A. E. Stallings]

Thanks, so much, Janet, for starting this. Here is a standard English rondeau:

"In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.


Not exactly Wilfred Owen, but it does employ the form to make an actual poem rather than just an exercise (an easy trap to fall into).

[Janet Kenny]

Alicia,
I had half typed that one and was so disappointed by the conventional last stanza that I deleted it. That is, of course, a personal prejudice. I will keep on looking.
Janet

[A. E. Stallings]

Well, I have to agree with you about the last stanza--the dead just want more slaughter? I'd like "the foe" to be something surprising, but rather fear it is literal.

[Howard]

"We Wear the Mask"
Paul Laurence Dunbar


WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

[Michael Juster]

If you go back a while at Translation, Janet, you'll see the versions of the d'Orleans poem done by Anthony Hecht, Len Krisak and me. Len's appeared in Commonweal and mine was slated for the (sob, sniffle...)Spring/Summer issue of The Formalist. With all due respect to the great Hecht, I think his take is a little "high church" for the piece, but I would be curious as to what others think.

[Roger Slater]

Actually, Michael, there were quite a few other versions of the poem on that thread. As I recall, just about everyone had a whirl with that one.

[Howard]

"Death of a Vermont Farm Woman"
Barbara Howe

Is it time now to go away?
July is nearly over; hay
Fattens the barn, the herds are strong,
Our old fields prosper; these long
Green evenings will keep death at bay.

Last winter lingered; it was May
Before a flowering lilac spray
Barred cold for ever. I was wrong.
Is it time now?

Six decades vanished in one day!
I bore four sons; one lives; they
Were all good men; three dying young
Was hard on us. I have looked long
For these hills to show me where peace lay . . .
Is it time now?


"Rondeau After a Transatlantic Phone Call"
Marilyn Hacker

Love, it was good to talk to you tonight.
You lather me like summer though. I light
up, sip smoke. Insistent through walls comes
the downstairs neighbor's double-bass. It thrums
like toothache. I will shower away the sweat,

smoke, summer, sound. Slick, soapy, dripping wet,
I scrub the sharp edge off my appetite.
I want: crisp toast, cold wine prickling my gums,
love. It was good

imagining around your voice, you, late-
awake there. (It isn't midnight yet
here.) This last glass washes down the crumbs.
I wish that I could lie down in your arms
and, turned toward sleep there (later), say, "Goodnight,
love. It was good."

[Henry Quince]

Austin Dobson wrote a rondeau to explain the usual English form (like the Flanders Fields one as Alicia says).


You Bid Me Try

YOU bid me try, blue-eyes, to write
A Rondeau. What! -- forthwith? -- tonight?
Reflect. Some skill I have, 'tis true;
But thirteen lines! -- and rimed on two!
"Refrain" as well. Ah, Hapless plight!

Still, there are five lines -- ranged aright.
These Gallic bonds, I feared, would fright
My easy Muse. They did, till you --
You bid me try!

That makes them eight. The port's in sight --
'Tis all because your eyes are bright!
Now just a pair to end in "oo" --
When maids command, what can't we do?
Behold! -- the rondeau, tasteful, light,
You bid me try!


Henry Austin Dobson


He also wrote the rondeau In After Days which is in the OBEV.