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

moil

Archaic Terms
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

To work hard with drudgery; to churn, swirl, or be in turmoil; hard, exhausting labor or confusion and tumult.

Detailed Definition
"Moil" derives from Old French "moillier" (to wet, moisten), developing meanings of working in mire, churning confusion, and exhausting labor. The term functions both transitively (to moil soil, to work it) and intransitively (to moil, to labor hard). Its dual sense—both physical churning and hard work—connected material and metaphorical meanings. Poets employed "moil" when depicting exhausting labor, particularly agricultural or menial work involving mud and mire. The word could describe both literal churning (waters moil) and figurative turmoil (crowds moil). Its harsh sound reinforced its meaning, making it effective for describing unpleasant, grinding labor or chaotic confusion. The term's association with wetness, mud, and exhausting work made it appropriate for depicting hardship and drudgery. Its archaic quality suited formal descriptions of labor and turmoil where elevated language was needed for unglamorous subject matter.
Example
Example in poetry:
Peasants moil and toil from dawn to dusk; "Years of moil produced little reward"; Moil means to work hard or drudge; The laborer moiled in the fields all summer; Life of moil and poverty marked serfdom; To moil suggests exhausting, dirty labor
Additional Notes
Moil demonstrates dual meaning: hard exhausting labor (verb/noun) and churning turbulent motion (verb). Both senses emphasize struggle and confusion. The term appears in realistic descriptions of hard work and metaphorical descriptions of inner turmoil. Related to "turmoil" and possibly to "muddy" (etymologically uncertain). Essential for analyzing labor representation, inner conflict imagery, and how texts link physical and psychological struggle. The term's harshness suits descriptions of unrewarding, repetitive, degrading work. Useful for discussing how literature represents working-class labor, whether sympathetically or not, and physical-work metaphors for mental states. The churning sense applies to crowds, minds, and waters, suggesting confused motion without progress—moiling produces heat without advancement.
Also Known As
toil labour drudge struggle
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