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 C

Carolus

Archaic Terms
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 gold coin named after King Charles, especially used for English or Dutch pieces bearing his image.

Detailed Definition
The carolus was a gold coin issued under monarchs named Charles, notably in England and the Low Countries, bearing their portrait and Latinised name. As a symbol, it links money directly to royal authority and the divine right of kings. In historical or political poetry, “carolus” can signal loyalty, contested legitimacy, or the economic strain of war and taxation. Its foreign, Latin-sounding name lends a slightly exotic or scholarly flavour, allowing poets to evoke a specific era of monarchy, trade, and shifting alliances through a single, resonant term.
Example
Example in poetry:
For a single Carolus the mercenary changed his colours and his cause; The old chest still smells of salt and gunpowder, its rusted lock once sealed on Caroluses; Her portrait, ringed in Carolus gold, stared coldly from the tavern wall; Poets weigh the price of loyalty in Carolus coins, bright discs stamped with a passing king.
Additional Notes
Carolus refers to coins struck under monarchs named Charles (often Latinised as Carolus), so it is a good shorthand for a particular political era: the Stuarts in England, or similar dynasties in the Low Countries. In poetry this term can signal royal authority minted into metal—loyalty paid, armies funded, or propaganda spread through portraiture on coins. It lends an antiquarian or numismatic flavour to historical verse and may be paired with references to civil war, restoration, or absolutism. Because the name is personal, poets can also personify the coin as the king’s “face” circulating through the pockets of his subjects.
Also Known As
Carolus dollar crown
Skip to main content