Rondo is one of those words of many relatives, both in our own English and other languages. Probably the great-grandfather of them all is the Latin rotundus, and probably the first emigrant to America, in the musical line of descent, was the old-fashioned round, familiar to our ancestors. Cousins and other close connections of the rondo are in music the roundelay and in poetry the rondeau, rondel, and roundel, all bearing a striking family resemblance both in external features and inward characteristics.
The poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, in his “Century of Roundels,” presents to us many charming representatives of this most modern branch of the family. The following verses, quoted from the work mentioned, are the best possible descriptive illustration of the form, scope, and characteristics of both the roundel in poetry and the rondo in music:
“THE ROUNDEL.
“A Roundel is wrought as a ring or a star-bright 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 or fear—
That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.