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

Aiblins

Dialect
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

Perhaps; maybe. A Scots adverb expressing uncertainty or possibility.

Detailed Definition
"Aiblins" carries a gentle tentativeness, softening assertions with a characteristically Scottish hedging quality. Burns uses it to introduce speculation or wish, and it lends a ruminative, philosophical tone to verse. Its archaic flavour gives poems a sense of timeless Scots speech, and it encapsulates the cultural habit of cautious understatement. In poetry, "aiblins" opens space for doubt and wonder, making it a quietly powerful lyric tool.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Aiblins" means "perhaps" or "maybe"; Burns uses it in "Epistle to Davie": "Aiblins, in some far-off year, / a kinder sun may fill the air." suggesting hopeful uncertainty; A poet might write: "Aiblins the spring will come again / and wash awa this winter's pain." to introduce tentative hope; "Aiblins she loves him, aiblins no — / the heart's a thing we cannae know." explores romantic ambiguity; "Aiblins the auld ways werena wrang, / the stories told, the hearth-fire sang." softens a nostalgic claim with qualification; "He thought, aiblins, the path was clear, / but mist descended, thick wi' fear." adds philosophical doubt to a journey
Additional Notes
Aiblins is one of the most poetically rich uncertainty words in Scots, far more evocative in sound and feel than plain English "perhaps" or "maybe." It appears in Burns's "To a Mouse" ("An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an' fear!") and throughout the reflective tradition. Its multi-syllabic softness suits moments of philosophical hesitation, and it carries a distinctly humble, tentative quality. Related Scots words for uncertainty and qualification include "belike," "mabbe," and "perchance" in the broader tradition. For students, "aiblins" signals a speaker stepping back from certainty — a key emotional gesture in the Burns lyric persona.
Also Known As
Perhaps Maybe Peradventure
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