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

Sonsie

Dialect
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

Plump, cheerful, and attractive; having a pleasant, hearty, good-natured appearance.

Detailed Definition
"Sonsie" appears unforgettably in Burns's "To a Haggis," where the dish is addressed as "great chieftain o' the puddin-race" with a "sonsie face." The word celebrates a kind of beauty that is robust, generous, and unpretentious — the beauty of abundance and good humour rather than elegance or delicacy. In Scots verse it represents an aesthetic of earthly health and warmth, and it is applied affectionately to people, animals, and even food. "Sonsie" embodies the Scots celebration of honest, bodily vitality.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Sonsie" means plump, jolly, buxom, or having an attractive fresh appearance; Burns uses "sonsie" in "Address to a Haggis": "Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face"; A poet might write: "A sonsie lassie, broad and braw — / the finest face the whole town saw." for a portrait; "The sonsie baker at her stall — / had warmth enough tae welcome all." characterises generous warmth; "Sonsie and round as the harvest moon — / she filled the room wi' her favourite tune." compares a person to seasonal abundance; "The sonsie lamb ran for its mam — / nae thought but joy and spring's exam." applies the word to a young animal; "A sonsie smile can heal the grey — / it doesn't cost a thing tae say." elevates cheerful appearance to social gift
Additional Notes
Sonsie is a word of warm, uncomplicated approval for a particularly Scottish kind of attractiveness — wholesome, cheerful, well-fed, alive. Burns addresses his haggis as "great chieftain o' the pudding-race" in the same poem where "sonsie" appears, and the word's association with robust, unpretentious pleasure is entirely fitting. Like "braw" and "bonnie," "sonsie" belongs to a cluster of Scots approval words, but its specific combination of plumpness and good cheer makes it distinct. In contemporary usage it has largely been absorbed into "sonsie-faced," describing a cheerful, round face. For students, it is an important example of how Scots aesthetic vocabulary embodies a specific cultural preference for healthy vitality over delicate beauty.
Also Known As
Jolly Plump Pleasant
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