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 R

Reduced six-foot dactylic

Meter
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 variation of dactylic hexameter with omitted syllables or a missing final foot, producing a shortened rhythm

Detailed Definition
Reduced six-foot dactyl is a condensed version of classical dactylic hexameter that maintains six metrical beats but simplifies diction, syntax, or caesura to suit modern language or translation—such as rendering Virgil’s “Arma virumque cano” as “Arms, the man, I sing.” This adaptation preserves the grandeur and rhythmic cadence of epic poetry while enhancing readability and contemporary relevance.
Example
Example in poetry:
Reduced six-foot dactylic appears in Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” where some lines drop a syllable for rhythmic variation; In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “Aurora Leigh,” hexameter lines occasionally truncate for emphasis; In Derek Walcott’s “Omeros,” dactylic lines shortened to reflect Caribbean speech; In A.E. Stallings’ translations of Lucretius, adapting hexameter to English brevity.

Classical hexameter shortened: “Arma virumque cano” becomes “Arms, the man, I sing” (abridged); “Sing, goddess, of the wrath” (Homer, condensed); “Time’s winged chariot hurries near” (Marvell, dactylic reduction); “Fame is the spur” (Milton, compressed hexameter echo); “Go, lovely rose” (Waller, reduced six-beat suggestion)
Additional Notes
Reduced six-foot dactylic trims classical hexameter to five or fewer dactyls. Contrast with shortened dactylic hexameter. Rare in English—often appears in mock-heroic verse; scan for rhythmic substitutions preserving dactylic feel.

Reduced six-foot dactyl condenses epic hexameter into six beats with simplified diction, often in translations (e.g., “Arms, the man, I sing”). Balances grandeur with modern readability.
Also Known As
Truncated dactylic hexameter Reduced six-foot dactyl Shortened epic meter Abridged hexameter Hypodactylic hexameter Reduced five-foot dactylic
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