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

antelope

Fauna
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 antelope is a diverse group of hoofed mammals, typically with slender, graceful builds and unbranched horns, symbolizing the wild, untamed elegance of open grasslands.

Detailed Definition
The term 'antelope' encompasses a vast array of species, and in poetry it often stands as a generic emblem for the collective herds that migrate across the savanna, representing freedom, the pulse of the earth, and the timeless cycle of grazing and predation. Its upright posture and alert ears convey a state of perpetual readiness. Poets use the antelope to evoke the broad, sun-scorched plains, the dust of the migration, and the fragile beauty of creatures that live at the mercy of the seasons and the chase, often as a contrast to domesticated animals.
Example
Example in poetry:
In "Antelope" by an anonymous poet, the animal is depicted with "legs like needles, fierce and fast" yet "one with Earth below," embodying both speed and grounding.; Another poem describes the antelope's tragic flight: "Run, dash O antelope, The fire is touching... Spreads the antelope on floor of earth".; The antelope can symbolize the hunted, as in "Antelope runs when he is hurt / Unless he is lame, or his heart fails".; A poet might use the antelope to represent grace under pressure, as in "She is proud among the hunted, / And as a fire, claims the land".; The animal's solitary nature can evoke loneliness, as in "Then he stands / Alone with himself in a cloud's shadow".
Additional Notes
The term "antelope" encompasses a vast array of species, giving poets flexibility but also requiring precision to avoid vagueness. In classical Persian and Arabic poetry, the gazelle—a type of antelope—is the standard image of beauty, but the broader term "antelope" appears more frequently in Western verse to evoke the African savanna or the collective, migratory herds of the plains. Poets often emphasize the antelope's slender legs, alert posture, and graceful flight to symbolize freedom, vulnerability, and the perpetual tension between predator and prey. The antelope's horns, which are unbranched and often ringed, can represent the cyclical nature of life or the individual's unique trajectory. When writing, consider specifying the type of antelope (e.g., gazelle, impala, kudu) for greater precision and symbolic weight.
Also Known As
graceful runner savanna sprinter horned fleet
Skip to main content