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.

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

More than meets the eye

Idiomatic Phrase
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

More than meets the eye indicates hidden complexity, depth, or unseen layers; poetically, it invites deeper inquiry, suggesting surfaces deceive and true meaning requires investigation beyond initial perception.

Detailed Definition
More than meets the eye means that a person, object, scene, or situation has hidden depth, complexity, danger, or meaning beyond first appearance. In poetry, this idiom is almost a principle of interpretation. A simple image may carry symbolic, historical, emotional, or ironic significance. The phrase is useful in poems about masks, landscapes, secrets, social judgement, and close reading itself. It reminds students that poetry often asks us to look again, because surface clarity may conceal layered truth.
Example
Example in poetry:
A mystery poem might say the silent gardener has more than meets the eye beneath his mud-stained coat; In a love lyric, a simple glance may hold more than meets the eye; The phrase means something is deeper or more complex than it first appears; A poet can use it to invite rereading and suspicion.
Additional Notes
More than meets the eye suggests hidden depth, complexity, danger, or significance beneath appearances. In poetry, it is almost a principle of reading, since poetic images often mean more than they first show. The phrase suits disguise, symbolism, unreliable surfaces, social masks, and ordinary objects charged with memory. Students should connect it with close reading: the eye begins interpretation, but does not complete it.
Also Known As
hidden aspects
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