(Sir Thomas Wyatt: Rondeau in Wyatt MS., reproduced in Anglia, vol. xviii. p. 478. ab. 1540.)
Besides the rondeaus found in the Wyatt MS., three poems of Wyatt's, published in Tottel's Songs and Sonnets (1557), were evidently intended as rondeaus (see Arber's Reprint, pp. 53, 73). The editor, not understanding the form or thinking it too unfamiliar to be popular, seems to have changed it to a sort of sonnet, omitting the refrain at the end and making a complete line of it as the ninth of the poem. These hidden rondeaus were discussed by Mr. Dobson in the Athenæum for 1878 (vol. i. p. 380); see also Alscher's Sir Thomas Wyatt und seine Stellung, etc.
Thou fool! if madness be so rife,
That, spite of wit, thou'lt have a wife,
I'll tell thee what thou must expect—
After the honeymoon neglect,
All the sad days of thy whole life;
To that a world of woe and strife,
Which is of marriage the effect—
And thou thy woe's own architect,
Thou fool!
Thou'lt nothing find but disrespect,
Ill words i' th' scolding dialect,
For she'll all tabor be, or fife;
Then prythee go and whet thy knife,
And from this fate thyself protect,
Thou fool!
(Charles Cotton: Rondeau. ab. 1675. Quoted by Guest, English Rhythms, Skeat ed., p. 645.)
A good rondeau I was induced to show
To some fair ladies some short while ago;
Well knowing their ability and taste,
I asked should aught be added or effaced,
And prayed that every fault they'd make me know.
The first did her most anxious care bestow
To impress one point from which I ne'er should go:
"Upon a good beginning must be based
A good rondeau."
Zeal bid the other's choicest language glow:
She softly said: "Recount your weal or woe,
Your every subject, free from pause or haste;
Ne'er let your hero fail, nor be disgraced."
The third: "With varying emphasis should flow
A good rondeau."
(J. R. Best: Ung Bon Rondeau, in Rondeaulx. Translated from the French, ed. 1527. 1838. Quoted in Ballades and Rondeaus, Introduction, p. xxxviii.)