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

Alaric

Historical Figure
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

Visigothic king who led the sack of Rome in 410 CE, a pivotal event symbolizing the decline of the Western Roman Empire.

Detailed Definition
Alaric’s sack of Rome shocked the ancient world, marking a symbolic end to Roman invincibility. Though a Christian, he led his people in defiance of imperial authority. Poets reference him as an emblem of barbarian conquest, the fall of empires, and the cyclical nature of history and decline.
Example
Example in poetry:
Alaric the Visigoth appears in Lord Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” as a symbol of barbarian conquest; Poets invoke Alaric’s sack of Rome to reflect on the fragility of empires; In Romantic verse, Alaric represents the wild force that topples decadent civilizations; Victorian poets used Alaric to warn against moral decay in modern society; Contemporary poets reference Alaric when exploring themes of migration and cultural collision; Alaric’s burial in the Busento River inspires elegiac imagery of hidden legacies.
Additional Notes
Alaric I (c. 370–410 CE), king of the Visigoths, famously sacked Rome in 410—a pivotal moment marking the decline of the Western Roman Empire; in poetry, Alaric embodies the “barbarian” invader or the agent of divine retribution, often used to evoke themes of imperial collapse, cultural transition, or the fragility of civilization; referenced in works like Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” and Gibbon-inspired meditations on empire.
Also Known As
Alaric I King Alaric
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