Rondeau
Rules quoted from the poets.org glossary; examples only from public-domain poems.
The rules, quoted
it is composed of fifteen lines, eight to ten syllables each, divided stanzaically into a quintet, a quatrain, and a sestet.
The rentrement consists of the first few words or the entire first line of the first stanza, and it recurs as the last line of both the second and third stanzas.
Two rhymes guide the music of the rondeau, whose rhyme scheme is as follows (R representing the refrain): aabba aabR aabbaR.
Our explanation written by Tale of the Muse
A rondeau has fifteen lines of eight to ten syllables, grouped as five, four and six, on two rhymes. Its refrain, the rentrement, takes the opening words or the whole first line and repeats them as the last line of the second and third stanzas, giving the scheme aabba aabR aabbaR.
Our plain-language restatement of the glossary rules above. It adds no facts of its own.
Example
No public-domain example is shown for this form.