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

leanbh

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

The Irish word for child, appearing frequently in lullabies, laments, and lyric verse as both a term of direct address and a symbol of innocence, vulnerability, and mortal tenderness.

Detailed Definition
Leanbh is the base form from which the diminutive leanbhán derives, and its poetic use spans the full range of Irish-language and Anglo-Irish verse. In laments it figures the unbearable loss of a young life; in lullabies it anchors the intimate world of mother and infant; in nationalist poetry it sometimes carries allegorical weight, representing Ireland's future or its suffering people. Its simplicity of sound — direct and soft — made it a natural choice for poets seeking an unadorned emotional centre, and its appearance in verse almost always signals a shift toward vulnerability or pathos.
Example
Example in poetry:
The leanbh represents innocence vulnerable to worldly corruption; Poets address the leanbh with tenderness mixed with protective anxiety; The leanbh symbolizes potential for future growth and transformation; Lament for dead leanbh expresses profound grief for interrupted life; The leanbh in fairy tales often faces trials that accelerate maturation; Modern poetry examines leanbh experience in context of social change and disruption.
Additional Notes
Leanbh (child) in Irish poetry is a symbol of innocence, potential, and vulnerability. Lullabies (suantraí) address the leanbh with tenderness, while laments mourn the loss of children. Poets use the leanbh to evoke empathy and protectiveness. The child represents the future and the continuity of the community. In political poetry, the leanbh may symbolize the nation in its infancy or victimhood. Understanding the role of the leanbh helps interpret the emotional appeals in Irish verse.
Also Known As
child infant baby youngster
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