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

Catalectic

Adjective
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 line of verse that is missing one or more final syllables in its expected metrical pattern

Detailed Definition
Catalectic refers to a metrical line of verse in which the last syllable or foot is incomplete or missing, leaving the rhythm deliberately unfinished; catalectic lines often appear in structured verse forms like trochaic or dactylic poetry, where the omission emphasizes closure, suspense, or creates a truncated musical effect, with an example found in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” where the shortened endings provide finality or thematic emphasis.
Example
Example in poetry:
Catalectic|Dactylic line missing final unstressed syllables; Truncated foot with stress but incomplete softs; "HICKory DICKory DOCK" with shortened ending; Metrical line deliberately shortened by one syllable

In Catullus’s hendecasyllabic lines, the final syllable is often omitted for emotional effect, as in “Cui dono lepidum novum libellum?” (katalectic ending); In English nursery rhymes like “Hickory Dickory Dock,” the final unstressed syllable is dropped in “The mouse ran up the clock,” making it katalectic trimeter; In Blake’s “The Lamb,” the line “Gave thee clothing of delight” ends without a final weak syllable, creating a katalectic trochaic tetrameter; In Greek choral odes, such as in Pindar, katalectic dactylic lines convey solemnity; In some of Emily Dickinson’s hymn-meter stanzas, the last foot is shortened (e.g., “Because I could not stop for Death –”), yielding a katalectic line; In Latin elegiac couplets, the pentameter line is often katalectic, ending abruptly for emphasis.
Additional Notes
Catalectic describes a line of verse missing an expected final syllable, giving an abrupt or unfinished feel that can add dramatic emphasis.

Katalectic describes a metrical line that is metrically incomplete—specifically, missing one or more syllables at the end compared to the expected full form (e.g., a trochaic tetrameter line ending after seven syllables instead of eight). Katalexis is common in certain fixed forms like the Sapphic stanza or in dramatic verse for rhythmic variation. It creates a sense of abruptness or suspension, often used to mirror emotional or thematic incompleteness. The opposite is acatalectic (a complete line). Prosodists must distinguish katalectic lines from mere truncation due to enjambment or elision.
Also Known As
Truncated metrically incomplete shortened foot missing final syllable Katalectic
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