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

compass

Tools
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 compass is a tool for drawing circles and measuring distances, formed from two hinged legs, usually one pointed and one holding a pencil.

Detailed Definition
The drawing compass is used by architects, navigators, engineers, and artisans to construct circles, transfer measurements, and establish proportion. It should be distinguished from the magnetic compass, though poets may exploit the shared name. In verse it often signifies geometry, order, cosmic design, and the attempt to impose perfect form on an irregular world. Its fixed point and sweeping leg can also suggest centredness, limitation, embrace, or a life describing its circle around a chosen person, place, or principle.
Example
Example in poetry:
The architect opened the compass and drew a perfect circle upon the page; John Donne's A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning famously uses a compass to represent two lovers who remain connected while apart; A compass may symbolise order imposed upon an irregular world; Her thoughts circled him as faithfully as the moving leg around the compass point.
Additional Notes
The drawing compass should be distinguished from the magnetic compass used in navigation. Its fixed point and moving leg make it an important poetic image of connection across distance, most famously in metaphysical poetry. It may also symbolise geometry, divine design, order, limitation, completeness, or the human attempt to create perfection. Students should watch for wordplay involving direction and circularity. Related terms include dividers, circle, radius, centre, geometry, measurement, navigation, proportion, design, constancy, distance, and spiritual unity.
Other Meanings of “compass”
Also Known As
drawing compass pair of compasses
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