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 N

Nursery Rhyme

Education
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 short traditional poem or song for young children, usually marked by rhyme, rhythm, repetition, and simple narrative. It often supports early language learning and oral play.

Detailed Definition
A nursery rhyme is a compact verse passed among children, families, and communities, often through singing, chanting, or recitation. Its memorable rhymes, strong beats, repeated words, and playful sounds help children develop listening skills, vocabulary, pronunciation, and awareness of patterns in language. Many nursery rhymes also carry traces of older customs, historical events, or folklore, though their meanings may shift over time. In poetry education, they provide accessible early examples of meter, rhyme, sound play, narrative, and the pleasures of communal oral performance.
Example
Example in poetry:
Students examine “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” as a nursery rhyme with repetition, regular rhythm, and simple rhyme; A poet adapts the nursery rhyme form of “Humpty Dumpty” to write a humorous poem about a fallen robot; The class compares the dark imagery of some traditional nursery rhymes with their cheerful sing-song sound; Reading “Hey Diddle Diddle” aloud helps beginning writers hear alliteration and end rhyme
Additional Notes
Nursery rhymes preserve oral patterns that help children hear rhyme, beat, repetition, and narrative sequence. Their apparent simplicity can also conceal historical references, nonsense language, or darker themes. Studying them is useful for examining meter, sound play, memorization, and the cultural transmission of verse.
Also Known As
Children’s Rhyme Traditional Nursery Verse Mother Goose Rhyme Folk Rhyme
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