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

afore

Archaic Terms
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

An archaic preposition and adverb meaning "before" in time or place; lends an old-fashioned or regional tone to poetic descriptions.

Detailed Definition
Afore serves as an archaic variant of "before," indicating precedence in space, time, or sequence, rooted in Middle English usage. Poets deploy it in ballads, dialect verse, and historical recreations to evoke rustic authenticity or biblical cadence, facilitating concise phrasing that fits tight metrical structures. Its application heightens narrative momentum or reflective contrast between past and present, enriching themes of memory, anticipation, and progression. By choosing "afore," poets maintain linguistic consistency with period sources and achieve sonic variety that distinguishes their work as consciously literary and rooted in tradition.
Example
Example in poetry:
Afore: Poetic tip: "Place the warning afore the tragedy unfolds."; Archaic ballad usage: Traditional English and Scottish ballads frequently employ "afore" in place of "before" to preserve rhythm, as in "Afore the cock did crow"; Definition-based: "Afore" functions identically to "before," indicating precedence in time or position, and survives today mainly in regional dialects; Exercise: Rewrite a modern sentence using "afore" to practice archaic register, such as "I saw the storm afore it came"; Contemporary literary echo: Writers of historical fiction and folk-inspired verse use "afore" to lend dialogue an authentic rustic or antique flavor; Contrast note: "Afore" feels earthier and more colloquial than the more formal "ere," which poets often reserve for elevated diction.
Additional Notes
The archaic preposition and adverb afore adds a timeless, biblical, or dialectal flavor to poetry, often appearing in works by Chaucer or Spenser to denote precedence in time or space. It builds a sense of historical continuity, useful for evoking medieval settings or prophetic tones; related to "before" but more concise for rhythmic flow. Professors might highlight its role in ballads for oral tradition feel—practice substituting in modern lines like "afore the dawn" to study how it shifts formality and musicality, avoiding overuse in contemporary free verse to prevent anachronism.
Also Known As
Before Afore (dialectal "afore" itself used interchangeably with "before")
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