A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter A

Acanthus

Flora
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A Mediterranean plant with large, deeply lobed leaves and tall spikes of white or purple flowers, famously depicted in classical architecture.

Detailed Definition
The acanthus leaf's stylized form adorns Corinthian columns, making it a symbol of classical beauty, artistry, and enduring civilization in poetry. Writers invoke it to suggest refinement, architectural grandeur, and the marriage of nature with human creativity. In Victorian flower language, acanthus represents the fine arts. Its appearance in poetry often connects ancient Greco-Roman culture with natural elegance, embodying how nature inspires human achievement and aesthetic ideals.
Example
Example in poetry:
Acanthus leaves, immortalized in Corinthian columns, appear in poems about classical architecture and enduring art, representing the marriage of nature and human design; The Mediterranean acanthus with its bold, sculptural leaves symbolizes artistic inspiration, as poets describe how ancient Greek sculptors studied its form; In elegiac poetry, acanthus can represent immortality through art, as in "carved acanthus leaves outlast the empire's fall"; The plant's robust growth and striking appearance make it a symbol of vitality and resilience in garden poetry; Poets use acanthus to evoke antiquity and classical learning, particularly in odes to museums or ancient ruins; The acanthus's ability to thrive in rocky terrain provides metaphors for intellectual or spiritual growth in adverse conditions
Additional Notes
Acanthus carries strong classical associations: its deeply cut leaves decorate Corinthian capitals in Greek and Roman architecture, making it a symbol of art, endurance, and aesthetic refinement. Poets use it to evoke antiquity, cultivated beauty, or the persistence of life springing from stone. It often appears in ekphrastic writing or meditations on ruins and civilisation.
Also Known As
Bear’s Breeches
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