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

Mirk

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

Darkness or gloom; the thick, impenetrable dark of night or dense shadow.

Detailed Definition
"Mirk" is one of the most atmospheric words in Scots, naming not merely the absence of light but a positive, heavy darkness with presence and character. It appears throughout the ballad tradition and in poems of the supernatural, where the mirk is the territory of ghosts, witches, and uncanny encounters. Burns's "Tam o' Shanter" is a poem of mirk and firelight, and the contrast between warmth and darkness is central to Scottish imaginative literature. The word's dark vowel and consonants enact its meaning, making it one of those perfect words where sound and sense are one.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Mirk" means darkness, gloom, or murky obscurity; A poet might write: "The mirk came early tae the glen — / the world was swallowed up again." for an atmospheric autumn poem; "She walked through mirk wi' certain feet — / love lit the road she had tae meet." uses darkness as backdrop for emotional courage; "In mirk and silence waits the soul / for light tae come and make it whole." applies the word to spiritual longing; "The mirk before the dawn is deep — / but dawn comes always, after sleep." offers consolation; "His thoughts were mirk for many a year — / then one clear morning, something cleared." marks psychological recovery; "The mirk of the sea on a moonless night / is where the fishing boats found their right." places the word in maritime reality
Additional Notes
Mirk is among the most atmospheric words in Scots, conjuring not just the absence of light but the palpable presence of darkness — thick, enveloping, slightly threatening. The "mirk" is the darkness you might get lost in, the darkness that hides things better left hidden. In ballad tradition, bad things happen in the "mirk" — abductions, murders, supernatural encounters. The word appears frequently in Gothic and supernatural Scots verse, where darkness is not merely metaphorical but actively antagonistic. Students should compare "mirk" with "dusk" and "gloamin'" (twilight): "gloamin'" is gentle and elegiac; "mirk" is threatening and impenetrable. This distinction is important for understanding how Scots poetry deploys darkness as an emotional and moral register.
Also Known As
Dark Murky Black
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