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 S

shortened hexameter

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 hexameter line missing one or more feet, creating a syncopated rhythm that can suggest incompleteness, haste, or emotional rupture.

Detailed Definition
Shortened hexameter is a truncated version of dactylic hexameter—the six-foot meter of classical epic poetry (Homer, Virgil)—reduced to fewer feet (e.g., five or four) to create a more urgent, fragmented, or modern rhythm. While rare in English (which lacks quantitative meter), it appears in experimental verse and translations seeking to evoke classical grandeur while acknowledging contemporary brevity. The shortening can symbolize the collapse of epic certainty, the fragmentation of myth, or the impossibility of sustained heroic narrative in a postmodern age. Students should understand classical hexameter first—six dactyls/spondees per line—to appreciate how truncation alters pacing, expectation, and thematic weight.
Example
Example in poetry:
Arma virumque cano—shortened from dactylic hexameter to five feet; “Of arms and the man I sing”—English hexameter reduced; “Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilles”—truncated to four feet; “I sing of warfare and a man at war”—compressed hexameter; “Muse, tell me of the man of many turns”—shortened measure
Additional Notes
Shortened hexameter trims dactylic hexameter (classical epic meter) to fewer feet, creating a truncated, urgent rhythm. Rare in English but used in translations or experimental verse. Students should understand classical hexameter first—six feet, dactyls/spondees. Shortening can symbolize fragmentation or modern brevity.
Also Known As
truncated dactylic line reduced classical meter clipped six-foot measure clipped six-foot line Shortened six-foot Truncated dactylic hexameter Hexameter truncation
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