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

Morris dance

Dance
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

An English folk dance performed with rhythmic stepping and often bells, sticks, handkerchiefs, or costumes. In poetry, it evokes rural tradition, seasonal ritual, and communal identity.

Detailed Definition
Morris dance is a group of English folk-dance traditions associated with village celebrations, seasonal customs, and ceremonial performance. Dancers may wear bells and use sticks, handkerchiefs, or swords, creating a vivid combination of sound, colour, and rhythmic movement. Poets invoke Morris dancing to suggest an older rural England, communal continuity, fertility rites, or the festive return of spring. The image can be affectionate, nostalgic, or critical, especially when the survival of tradition is contrasted with industrial change, modern isolation, or cultural loss.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Bells shook at their knees as the Morris dancers crossed the village green” gives a vivid picture of English folk custom; A poet may mention sticks, handkerchiefs, and rhythmic stamping to make the Morris dance immediate; “Spring arrived in a Morris dance of blossom and birdsong” uses it as a seasonal metaphor; The dance can celebrate communal tradition or represent an older rural culture threatened by modern change.
Additional Notes
Morris dance refers to several English traditions rather than one uniform choreography. Bells, sticks, handkerchiefs, stepping, and seasonal performance may appear, but customs differ by region and style. In poetry, Morris dancing can evoke spring, village identity, continuity, or a deliberately imagined old England. Students should be alert to nostalgia and to claims that oversimplify its origins. Related terms include Cotswold Morris, border Morris, rapper sword, May Day, folk revival, village green, seasonal custom, and communal memory.
Also Known As
Morris Morris dancing
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