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 O

Omar Khayyam

Historical Figure
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

Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet associated with sceptical, wine-filled reflections on time and fate.

Detailed Definition
Omar Khayyam became widely known in English through Edward FitzGerald’s rendering of the Rubáiyát. In poetry, he represents philosophical doubt, carpe diem pleasure, and the melancholy brevity of human life. His cup, rose, and turning heavens provide poets with images of beauty under the shadow of mortality, where wisdom lies in accepting uncertainty and savouring the passing hour.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poet might invoke Omar Khayyam to suggest wine, fate, scepticism, and the brevity of life; The Rubaiyat makes the cup and rose powerful symbols of fleeting pleasure; A poem might use Omar to question whether wisdom lies in philosophy or in the present moment; His name often signals elegant doubt beneath sensuous imagery
Additional Notes
Omar Khayyam is usually encountered in English through FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát, so poets may be invoking a Victorian re-creation as much as the historical Persian thinker. His name suggests wine, roses, dust, passing time, scepticism, and the urgency of the present moment. Students should note the tension between hedonistic reading, philosophical doubt, and the uncertainties of translation.
Also Known As
Umar Khayyam Omar Khayyám Ghiyath al-Din Omar Khayyam Omar the Tentmaker
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