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 E

extended ballade

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

A ballade variant expanded beyond the traditional three stanzas, often with additional envois or thematic development.

Detailed Definition
An extended ballade is a variation of the traditional French ballade form—typically featuring three stanzas of eight to ten lines each with a consistent rhyme scheme and a recurring refrain—that incorporates additional stanzas, altered line lengths, or thematic elaborations while preserving the core structural and lyrical spirit of the original; this extension allows poets to explore more intricate narratives or emotional landscapes without abandoning the ballade’s musicality and formal discipline.
Example
Example in poetry:
Christine de Pizan’s “Le Livre des Trois Vertus” uses extended ballade form; Charles d’Orléans’s ballades extend courtly themes; Algernon Charles Swinburne’s “A Ballad of Burdens” extends ballade to social critique; Marilyn Hacker’s “Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons” uses extended ballade sequences; contemporary poets like A.E. Stallings adapt ballade for feminist themes; Terrance Hayes uses ballade variations in “American Sonnets.”
Additional Notes
A formal French poem of 28 lines (three stanzas of eight lines and a final four-line envoy) that utilizes a specific, intricate rhyme scheme and refrain (repeated final line of each stanza); a challenging, extended fixed form.
Also Known As
Enlarged ballade Extended fixed form Amplified ballad stanza Ballade royal
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