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 B

Bacchic ode

Form
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

Lyric poem celebrating Bacchus or characterized by wild, ecstatic themes

Detailed Definition
Bacchic ode: A celebratory poem in honor of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and revelry, characterized by exuberant tone, sensual imagery, and themes of pleasure, intoxication, and liberation. These odes often employ elaborate strophic forms and heightened language to convey dionysian energy and abandon. The bacchic ode tradition extends from classical Greek and Roman poetry through Renaissance and Romantic periods, exploring tensions between restraint and excess, reason and passion. These poems celebrate sensory experience and temporary release from social constraints through wine, festivity, and communion with nature.
Example
Example in poetry:
Horace’s odes to wine and friendship provide classical models for Bacchic celebration; “Now the bright cup answers the drum, and ivy crowns the door” evokes Dionysian festivity through wine, music, and ritual; Euripides’ Bacchae supplies a darker source for poems about ecstasy, possession, and the god’s disruptive power; A contemporary Bacchic ode might celebrate dance-floor abandon while questioning intoxication’s costs; Unlike every drinking song, a Bacchic ode specifically draws on Bacchus or Dionysian themes of revel, transformation, and excess
Additional Notes
Bacchic ode celebrates wine, revelry, and Bacchus (Dionysus). This classical form employs energetic meters and exuberant imagery, descended from ancient Greek drinking songs and ceremonial hymns.
Also Known As
Bacchiac ode Bacchic hymn Dionysian ode Bacchic lyric Anacreontic ode Drinking ode
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