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 G

gay

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

Bright, showy, or cheerful in appearance or manner; not primarily associated with modern connotations of sexual orientation.

Detailed Definition
Historically, “gay” described vivid colors, festive moods, or flamboyant attire, frequently appearing in medieval and Renaissance poetry to depict joy, splendor, or moral levity. In Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” or Shakespeare’s sonnets, it conveys exuberance or superficial charm, sometimes with ironic undertones suggesting moral looseness or fleeting pleasure. The term’s shift in meaning makes its archaic usage especially poignant in historical verse, where it enhances imagery of springtime, courtly revelry, or deceptive beauty. Its rhythmic brevity and positive resonance made it a staple of poetic diction before semantic evolution altered its primary association.
Example
Example in poetry:
The knights rode forth in gay attire with banners bright unfurled; All nature seemed gay with blossoms in the month of May; The court assembled in gay company for the festival; Her gay laughter rang through the garden like silver bells; The meadow was gay with wildflowers of every hue; They danced with gay abandon beneath the summer stars
Additional Notes
In archaic and literary contexts, "gay" primarily signifies brightness, cheerfulness, showiness, or festive splendor, with no connection to modern sexual orientation meanings that emerged in the 20th century. From Old French "gai," the term appears throughout medieval and Renaissance poetry to describe vivid colors, festive occasions, lighthearted moods, or attractive appearances. Chaucer uses "gay" to describe richly adorned clothing; Spenser employs it for bright natural scenes. The word frequently modifies "apparel," "company," "flowers," "banners," and "spirits." In older poetry, "gay" could suggest worldly pleasure or superficial attractiveness, sometimes carrying mild moral criticism of vanity. Students studying pre-20th century texts must understand the historical semantic range to avoid misreading. The term's evolution exemplifies how word meanings shift dramatically over time. When encountering "gay" in classic poetry, readers should interpret it through its historical context of brightness, festivity, and cheerful showiness rather than imposing contemporary meanings.
Also Known As
gaye merry bright Blithe
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