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 I

Infantry

Military
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

Infantry refers to soldiers who fight on foot, historically forming the backbone of most armies throughout history.

Detailed Definition
Infantry represents the common soldier's experience of war, grounded and immediate, in contrast to the mobility of cavalry or the distance of artillery. Poets frequently center infantry soldiers as the emotional core of war poetry, since their direct, muddy, exhausting engagement with combat conditions offers the most visceral human perspective on conflict. The infantryman's endurance and vulnerability make this term central to poetic explorations of sacrifice and survival.
Example
Example in poetry:
Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon centered much of their poetry on the infantry's direct, muddy experience of combat; A poem might describe infantry soldiers trudging through mud, burdened by packs and exhaustion; Poets use "infantry" to ground abstract warfare in the visceral endurance of common foot soldiers; A verse could contrast the infantry's slow, grinding advance with cavalry's earlier romanticized mobility; The term often appears in poetry emphasizing the infantryman as war poetry's emotional core; Historical poetry sometimes uses infantry to represent the ordinary citizen thrust into extraordinary danger.
Additional Notes
Infantry refers to soldiers who fight on foot, historically forming the backbone of most armies throughout history. Infantry are the "queen of battle," the force that takes and holds ground. They operate in all terrains and weather, enduring hardship and facing the enemy directly. In poetry, infantry are the ordinary soldiers, the infantryman, who experiences the true nature of war. Related terms include foot soldiers, riflemen, and doughboys. The infantry's weapon, the rifle, and its unit, the squad, are fundamental. The bond between infantry comrades is a powerful theme, forged in shared danger and survival. The term conveys the humility and sacrifice of the soldier who must march, dig, and fight with nothing but grit and determination.
Also Known As
Foot Soldiers Footmen Foot Troops Riflemen Infantrymen Doughboys
Skip to main content