One way is to use a closure to create a subroutine reference, this is a simpler version of anonymonk's &make_rollover.

$ perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -E '
> my $cycle = do {
>    my $val = 0;
>    sub { return ( ( $val ++ ) % 4 ) + 1; };
>    };
> 
> say $cycle->() for 1 .. 10;'
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
$
[download]

I hope this is useful.

Update: Corrected typo, s/ue/use/