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

linkboy

Historical Office
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 boy who carried a flaming torch to light the way for pedestrians at night

Detailed Definition
The linkboy appears in poetry as a fleeting guide through urban darkness and moral ambiguity. Historically employed in pre-streetlight cities, linkboys were both useful and distrusted, sometimes associated with thieves. In verse—especially in 17th- and 18th-century London poetry—they evoke transience, danger, and the fragile illumination of truth. Their torches become metaphors for guidance, revelation, or the precariousness of safety in the night.
Example
Example in poetry:
In 18th-century London verse, the linkboy carries torches for night walkers through fog; William Hogarth-inspired poetry depicts linkboys as guides through vice districts; The linkboy in Thomas Hood’s sketches sells light to the wealthy; Linkboys appear in Gothic verse leading lovers or fugitives; Their flames symbolize fleeting safety in urban darkness; In nostalgic odes, they vanish before gaslight.
Additional Notes
Linkboys carried flaming torches to light paths for night travelers in pre-streetlamp cities; often poor boys, they risked burns or crime—poetic linkboys symbolize guidance through darkness, transience, or urban danger; their flickering light appears in nocturnal cityscapes as a metaphor for fragile safety.
Also Known As
link boy torchbearer
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