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 M

Mignonette

Flora
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 plant with pyramidal clusters of small, highly fragrant flowers in greenish-white or yellow.

Detailed Definition
Mignonette symbolizes excellence and moral worth exceeding beauty in poetry. Its modest appearance but powerful, sweet fragrance makes it represent hidden qualities and the primacy of essence over appearance. In Victorian flower language, mignonette meant "your qualities surpass your charms." Poets use mignonette to argue that true worth lies beyond surface beauty, that small or plain things may possess great virtue, and that fragrance (essence, character) matters more than visual display. The flower represents the overlooked and underestimated.
Example
Example in poetry:
Mignonette's modest appearance but powerful scent represents hidden qualities and subtle charm; In Victorian language, mignonette symbolizes worth beyond beauty; The flowers' use in perfumery connects to poems about essence and concentration; In cutting gardens, mignonette adds fragrance to more showy blooms; The plant's French name (little darling) adds endearment to garden poetry; Mignonette's preference for cool weather creates metaphors for thriving in specific conditions
Additional Notes
Mignonette is a fragrance plant above all, historically popular in nosegays and windowsills. Its greenish, modest flowers contrast with its powerful scent, offering a strong metaphor for quiet people with deep effect, or for love that is not showy. In poems of the nineteenth century, it can evoke intimacy, letters, and indoor life, where small sensory details carry emotional weight. It’s also useful for teaching how scent can function as narrative: it arrives, lingers, and returns unexpectedly.
Also Known As
Reseda Sweet Reseda
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