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

Continuous elegy

Form
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

An elegy that unfolds without formal stanzaic breaks, maintaining a sustained mournful tone

Detailed Definition
A continuous elegy is a sustained poetic lament that unfolds without formal breaks or stanzas, using enjambment and fluid syntax to mirror unceasing grief; unlike traditional elegies with tripartite structure (lament, praise, consolation), it emphasizes the ongoing, unresolved nature of mourning.
Example
Example in poetry:
Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” is a continuous elegy for Lincoln, flowing without stanza breaks; Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A.H.H.” uses continuous elegiac sections (though divided, each flows lyrically without formal interruption); Allen Ginsberg’s “Kaddish” is a continuous elegy for his mother, blending lament, memory, and prayer; Thom Gunn’s “The Missing” mourns friends lost to AIDS in an unbroken lyrical sequence.
Additional Notes
A continuous elegy mourns without formal stanza breaks, using enjambment and flowing syntax to mirror unbroken grief; contrasts with segmented elegies that mark stages of mourning—effective for conveying overwhelming or unresolved loss.
Also Known As
Unbroken elegy flowing lament seamless mourning sustained threnody Non-stanzaic elegy Seamless dirge Stichic elegy
Skip to main content