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

dolt

Archaic Terms
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 foolish or stupid person, often used to denote someone lacking intelligence or common sense; common in poetic satire to mock vanity or ignorance.

Detailed Definition
In archaic poetry, “dolt” served as a sharp, dismissive label for a character whose stupidity was both comical and morally instructive. Derived from Middle Dutch “dolt” meaning dull or stupid, it appeared frequently in Elizabethan drama and satirical verse to ridicule pretension, especially among the foolish noble or the vainly self-important. Poets used it not merely to insult but to underscore the contrast between outward appearance and inner emptiness, often pairing it with imagery of physical heaviness or sluggishness. Its blunt, monosyllabic sound reinforced its derogatory force, making it ideal for rhythmic, punchy lines that delivered moral critique through ridicule, particularly in works that valued wit over wisdom.
Example
Example in poetry:
The dolt believed the moon was cheese hung in the sky; Mark well the dolt who laughs at truth and dances on the edge; He played the dolt to win her smile, yet lost her all the same; That dolt hath sold his soul for coin that melts before the dawn.
Additional Notes
“Dolt” derives from Middle Dutch and entered English poetry as a blunt, dismissive term for someone lacking common sense, often used in satirical verse to expose vanity masked as dignity; unlike “fool,” which could be wise in disguise, the dolt was irredeemably obtuse, frequently depicted as oblivious to danger or social cues, as in Jonson’s comedies; its short, clipped sound made it perfect for comic couplets and scathing epigrams, where brevity amplified insult; poets paired it with terms like “ass” or “noddypate” to create escalating ridicule, reinforcing the idea that stupidity was not merely intellectual but behavioral and moral; students should note its frequent use in political satire, where doltish courtiers symbolized the corruption of power by ignorance, and its rarity in lyrical or devotional poetry, where it was considered too crude for solemn tone.
Also Known As
fool idiot simpleton numbskull lout clodpate mooncalf clotpole mome
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