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 H

Hypochondriacal

Disease
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

“Hypochondriacal” describes excessive fear or preoccupation with illness, often despite limited medical evidence. The term can also carry older associations with melancholy and nervous disorder.

Detailed Definition
“Hypochondriacal” comes from the historical diagnosis of hypochondria, once linked to bodily complaints, melancholy, and disturbances thought to arise below the ribs. Modern usage usually refers to persistent anxiety about health, though the older word can sound judgmental or dismissive. In poetry, it may portray a speaker who interprets every sensation as a sign of death or decay. Such imagery explores uncertainty within the body, the burden of fear, and the difficult boundary between genuine suffering and imagined catastrophe.
Example
Example in poetry:
Hypochondriacal fears haunting the silent hall (Edgar Allan Poe, "The Raven"); A hypochondriacal disposition shunning the sun (William Cowper, "The Task"); Hypochondriacal fancies shaping shadows in the dark (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Kubla Khan"); The hypochondriacal poet nursing imagined ill (Alexander Pope, "The Rape of the Lock"); Hypochondriacal gloom clouding the summer day (Lord Byron, "Manfred")
Additional Notes
"Hypochondriacal" refers to an excessive, distressing anxiety over health and a fixated belief that one is suffering from serious illness. In poetic history, particularly during the 18th century (the "Age of Melancholy"), hypochondria was closely linked to high sensibility, intellectual overwork, and artistic genius (often termed hypo or the spleen). Students examining poets such as William Cowper or Thomas Gray can explore how hypochondriacal tendencies in speakers blur the line between real physical suffering and poetic imagination, illustrating the mind's power to affect bodily health. Related terms include melancholic, valetudinarian, splenetic, and pathological.
Also Known As
Valetudinarian Melancholic Health-Anxious
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