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

bourtree

Flora
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 bourtree is a Scots word for the elder tree, a shrub or small tree noted for its clusters of flowers and berries.

Detailed Definition
In Scottish dialect and poetry, bourtree usually means the common elder (Sambucus nigra). Its appearance in spring—when it leafs out and later flowers—can help establish a seasonal, rural setting. Poets may use the word not only for the plant itself but also to give a poem local Scottish colour and speech rhythms.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Charles Murray’s “The Maid O’ the Mill,” the speaker observes signs of spring: “There’s leaves upon the bourtree on the haugh,” Here, the bourtree has put out leaves on the haugh, or low riverside meadow. Along with blossom, buds, and green ferns in the following lines, it shows that spring has arrived, supporting the speaker’s wish not to wait until summer for love and reunion.
Additional Notes
Bourtree is also spelled bore-tree, bur-tree, or elder tree. The term is chiefly Scots and may be unfamiliar outside Scotland; in standard English, use elder or elder tree. The name may be connected with the elder’s soft pith, which can be removed to make hollow tubes or pipes. Elder trees have strong associations in British and Scottish folklore, where they may be linked with protection, healing, or supernatural belief.
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