Rondeau

A French thirteen-line poem that has lines of either 8 or 10 syllables in length. It is divided into stanzas of five, three, and five lines, constructed around two rhymes. The first words (or entire first line) are used as a refrain that repeats independent of the rhyme scheme, adding two lines to the basic thirteen. The format is such:

A (Refrain)
A
B
B
A

A
A
B
(R)

A
A
B
B
A
(R)

An example is in the introductory post.