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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I want.

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

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

Anglo-Saxon verse

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

Verse based on alliterative, strong-stress meter typical of Old English poetry.

Detailed Definition
Anglo-Saxon verse encompasses the body of alliterative poetry composed in Old English during the Anglo-Saxon period. This verse tradition features strict alliterative patterns where stressed syllables in each line begin with the same consonant sounds, along with a mid-line caesura dividing the four-stress line into two half-lines. Anglo-Saxon verse includes heroic epics, elegies, riddles, and religious poems, all sharing the distinctive alliterative form and formulaic style that characterize the tradition.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum…” opens Beowulf with alliterative vigor; Anglo-Saxon verse relies on stress and alliteration, not rhyme: “oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum”; Modern poets like Seamus Heaney revive the form in “The Burial at Thebes”; Each line split by caesura: “Oft him anhaga are gebideð”; Themes of fate, heroism, and transience dominate the meter.
Additional Notes
Anglo-Saxon verse is another term for Old English poetry or Anglo-Saxon poetry, distinguished by its accentual-alliterative meter rather than end-rhyme or syllable count.
Also Known As
Anglo-Saxon verse form Germanic alliterative verse Old English poetic meter Alliterative verse Beowulf verse
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