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

dram

Viniculture
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 dram is a small unit of measurement for liquid, often used to refer to a small drink of alcohol, typically whisky.

Detailed Definition
In Viniculture, a dram represents a modest quantity of liquid, particularly alcoholic beverages. Traditionally, it is used to denote a small serving of spirits, often associated with whisky. In the context of Thomas MacDonagh's poem "The Yellow Bittern," the term conveys a sense of longing and the bittersweet nature of drinking, as the speaker reflects on the necessity of a small drink to quench thirst and the deeper emotional connections tied to drinking rituals.
Example
Example in poetry:
In "The Yellow Bittern," MacDonagh writes, "Well, the milk and the ale are drunk every drop, / And a dram won't stop our thirst this night." Here, the mention of a dram emphasizes the insufficiency of a small drink in the face of greater thirst and longing, illustrating the poem's themes of solitude and desire.
Additional Notes
The term "dram" has its origins in the Greek word "drakhmē," which referred to a small weight or measure. Historically, it has been used in various contexts, including apothecaries and culinary measurements. In modern usage, it is often associated with whisky tasting, where a dram signifies a small pour meant for savoring. Related terms include "shot" and "nip," which also refer to small servings of alcohol. When using "dram," it is important to consider the cultural connotations of drinking and the emotional weight it can carry in poetry and literature.
Also Known As
drachm
Skip to main content