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 F

Feart

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

Afraid or frightened; the Scots past participle of "fear" used as an adjective.

Detailed Definition
"Feart" is more visceral and immediate than "afraid," its clipped consonants conveying the sudden, physical quality of fear. It appears in Scots poetry of all periods to describe human and animal timidity, confrontation with the unknown, and the courage required to overcome terror. Burns uses related forms to examine vulnerability, and modern Scots poets use "feart" to explore psychological states with characteristic directness. The word refuses euphemism, naming the experience of fear with blunt, honest precision.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Feart" means afraid, frightened, or scared; Burns implies the state frequently even if not always using this word; A poet might write: "He stood feart at the forest edge — / the darkness held an unheard pledge." for gothic effect; "She wasnae feart of wind or wave — / it was the silence made her crave." explores what truly frightens; "The bairn was feart of the auld black craw / that perched on the gate wi' its gaping maw." uses natural imagery for childhood fear; "To be feart is tae be alive — / fear is how the cautious thrive." reframes fear as necessary instinct; "He was feart tae love, feart tae lose, / feart of the joy he'd have tae choose." maps paralysis through repeated use; "Even heroes kent the feart — / it lived right next tae a brave heart." normalises fear alongside courage
Additional Notes
Feart occupies a rich psychological space in Scots — it is not the formal, composed "afraid" of Standard English but something more immediate, more childlike, more honest. To be "feart" is to feel fear in the belly, viscerally and immediately. Burns uses it in "Address to the Deil" and elsewhere to humanise fear, making it a shared, understandable condition rather than a moral failing. In contemporary Scottish poetry and drama, "feart" is frequently used to describe political timidity or social cowardice — being "feart" to speak, to act, to commit — giving it a sharp contemporary edge. Students should note how its tone shifts between sympathy and challenge depending on context.
Also Known As
Afraid Frightened Fearful
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