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 L

Lazarus

Biblical
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 friend of Jesus raised from the dead after four days, symbolizing resurrection, divine power, and the triumph over mortality.

Detailed Definition
Lazarus’s resurrection in Bethany confirmed Jesus as “resurrection and life” and intensified opposition leading to the cross. His story prefigures Christ’s own victory. In poetry, Lazarus embodies the power of divine summons over death, the intimacy of Christ’s grief and glory, and the hope of bodily resurrection—often symbolizing the believer called from spiritual death to new life.
Example
Example in poetry:
T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” opens with the epigraph “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,” invoking resurrection as existential testimony; In John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X, “Death, be not proud,” Lazarus becomes a type of victory over mortality; George Herbert’s “The Quip” references Lazarus to contrast earthly and heavenly feasts; Modern African American spirituals like “Lazarus, Come Forth” use his story as metaphor for liberation from slavery; In Denise Levertov’s “The Avowal,” Lazarus symbolizes the soul’s return to truth after spiritual death; Some Easter poems quote John 11:43—“Lazarus, come out!”—as divine command over despair.
Additional Notes
Lazarus is famously raised from the dead by Jesus in John 11, symbolizing resurrection and divine power; he also appears in Luke 16 as the poor man in Jesus’ parable contrasting earthly suffering and heavenly reward; poets often use Lazarus to explore themes of death, rebirth, social justice, or the liminal space between life and afterlife.
Also Known As
Lazarus of Bethany Lazarus the Resurrected
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