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

Compline

Time And Calendar
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

The final prayer service of the traditional Christian daily office, said before sleep. It is associated with nightfall, rest, and mortality.

Detailed Definition
Compline is the late-night office in the monastic pattern of prayer, traditionally marking the close of the day before sleep. Its language of protection, forgiveness, and peaceful rest has made it resonant in religious and secular poetry alike. A poem invoking Compline may frame night as a spiritual threshold, where the speaker reviews the day, confronts vulnerability, or accepts the small rehearsal of death implied by sleep.
Example
Example in poetry:
Compline is the final prayer service of the traditional Christian day, often associated with night, protection, and rest; In a monastery poem, the bells for Compline can signal that labor and speech are ending; “After Compline, even the cloister listened” uses the service as a marker of sacred silence; T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets draws on liturgical rhythms that can help poets understand how services such as Compline organize time
Additional Notes
Compline is the final daily office in Christian liturgy, traditionally said near bedtime and associated with examination, prayer, protection through the night, and surrender to sleep. In poetry it may carry echoes of ritual, quiet community, mortality, or death as a final rest. Contrast matins, the morning office, and vespers, evening prayer. If using the term, let its religious specificity matter; consider whether the speaker participates, remembers, resists, or overhears the rite.
Also Known As
Night Prayer
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