A refrain is a line or group of lines that repeats at regular points in a poem, often at the end of each stanza. The repeated words can act like a chorus, strengthening the poem's rhythm, unifying its structure, or highlighting an important idea or feeling.
Refrains are common in songs, ballads, and lyric poems, though the repetition may vary slightly from one appearance to the next.
Example
The tide comes in, the tide goes out,
It combs the shore with silver doubt;
And still I hear the gulls complain,
The tide comes in, the tide goes out.
I leave my footprints in the sand,
The water smooths them with its hand;
I watch the moonlit dark remain,
The tide comes in, the tide goes out.
For example, one version of the traditional ballad
The Cruel Sister includes a refrain mid-verse:
- There lived a lady by the North Sea shore,
- Lay the bent to the bonny broom
- Two daughters were the babes she bore.
- Fa la la la la la la la.
- As one grew bright as is the sun,
- Lay the bent to the bonny broom
- So coal black grew the other one.
- Fa la la la la la la la.