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 D

Dander

Dialect
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 gentle stroll or saunter; also one's temper when roused, as in "getting one's dander up."

Detailed Definition
"Dander" operates in two distinct but both very Scots registers: the leisurely, unhurried walk and the rising temper. In its first sense it appears in poems of landscape and contemplation, capturing a meditative, easy movement through the world. In its second sense it lends comic or dramatic energy to verse about confrontation and passion. This double life makes "dander" a richly versatile word, embodying both the peaceable and the combative aspects of Scots vernacular character.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Dander" means a stroll or leisurely walk; A poet might write: "She took a dander by the shore, / no purpose but to breathe once more." for meditative walking; "A Sunday dander up the brae / was how he cleared the week away." establishes habitual refreshment; "Take a dander through the standing stane — / the ancient dead will ease your pain." uses walking as ritual; "They dandered doun tae the old mill pond / of which both bairns had grown so fond." evokes childhood geography; "His dander slowed when years grew thick — / the world grew wide, his steps grew quick." marks aging through changed pace
Additional Notes
Dander carries a pleasing ambiguity that poets have exploited across the centuries. The "gentle dander" — an unhurried walk — captures a whole philosophy of pace, the refusal to be hurried that is often associated with a certain Scottish temperament. But "getting one's dander up" pulls in the opposite direction entirely, describing the sudden rise of temper that can erupt without warning. In verse, the word can carry ironic charge when both meanings are in play — the seemingly placid person whose dander is secretly rising. Students should note how this double meaning creates comic potential: the leisurely stroller who is, in fact, seething.
Also Known As
Stroll Saunter Wander
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