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

ance

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

A Scots dialect term meaning once, formerly, or on a single occasion; used in poetry to evoke a past event or to signal a shift from a previous state to the present.

Detailed Definition
"Ance" appears in the line "The English, for ance, by guile wan the day," where it conveys that the English victory was a singular, exceptional occurrence, achieved through deception. The word's clipped, short vowel gives it a firm, emphatic rhythm. In Scots poetry, "ance" frequently appears in narrative and reflective contexts, often to mark a decisive moment. Its use here is laced with bitterness—this one time, the English prevailed through treachery, underscoring the unfairness of the disaster. The term also carries a temporal resonance, suggesting that this defeat stands as an anomaly in Scotland's military history, making the loss even harder to bear.
Example
Example in poetry:
ance|"The English, for ance, by guile wan the day" (Jean Elliot, "A Lament for Flodden") uses "ance" to emphasise the singular, exceptional nature of the English victory, implying it was a one-off fluke achieved through deceit.; "Ay, and even Mess John ance or twice ga'e a stammer" (from "The Witch on the brae") shows "ance" meaning "once" or "on one occasion", used to describe the minister's rare slips in speech.; "He's never there by daylicht, but ance the gloamin' fa's" (W D Cocker, "The Bogle") uses "ance" to mark the precise moment when the bogle appears, signalling the transition from day to night and the onset of fear.; "Rob Macgregor's come again, Ilka ane thought dead and gane" (from "Rob Macgregor") pairs "ance" implicitly with the idea of return, suggesting a singular, miraculous reappearance.; "An' although she ne'er rode on a stick to the moon, She has set the auld dominie twice aff the tune. Ay, and even Mess John ance or twice ga'e a stammer" (from "The Witch on the brae") shows "ance" in a comic context, describing the witch's occasional, but memorable, disruptions.
Additional Notes
"Ance" is the Scots contraction of "once," and its use in poetry often carries a wistful or emphatic quality, marking a singular, unrepeatable event. In Jean Elliot's "A Lament for Flodden," the line "The English, for ance, by guile wan the day" uses the word to suggest that the English victory was an exceptional, almost freakish occurrence, achieved through deception rather than superior valour. This usage adds a layer of bitterness to the lament, implying that such a defeat should never have happened and will not happen again. For poetry students, note that "ance" can function as a metrical convenience, its single syllable fitting neatly into iambic rhythms where the two-syllable "once" might disrupt the flow. It also carries a colloquial warmth, grounding formal verse in the rhythms of everyday Scots speech. In Burns's work, "ance" often appears in narrative contexts to mark a decisive turning point, and its repetition can create a cumulative, incantatory effect. When teaching Scots poetry, emphasising the distinctiveness of "ance" helps students appreciate how dialect choices are never merely decorative but carry thematic and emotional weight, shaping the reader's perception of time, memory, and the irreversibility of loss.
Also Known As
Aince Ance (variant spelling) For ance (in phrases) Ance-won (once won) Ance-ower (once over) Ance-again (once again)
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