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

stool-ball

Games
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

Stool-ball is an early bat-and-ball game, precursor to cricket, played with a stool as a target or wicket.

Detailed Definition
Stool-ball features in poetry as a pastoral or courtship pastime, often associated with spring and rural gatherings. In early modern literature it symbolizes light-hearted competition and the meeting of the sexes. Poets use the stool and the ball to evoke themes of aim, defense, and the playful defenses of love or honor in communal settings.
Example
Example in poetry:
Stool-ball’s early bat and target appear in poems of pastoral and courtship play; Renaissance verse places the game among the springtime contests of the green; “They played stool-ball until the stools themselves seemed to lean into the game” illustrates rustic and amorous energy; Educational examples present the sport as a precursor to cricket and rounders; Poets return to stool-ball when the contest must feel both ancient and lightly erotic.
Additional Notes
Stool-ball’s early bat and stool target preserve the memory of a pastoral and often courtship-oriented precursor to cricket. The game’s springtime and green associations allow poets to evoke seasonal and lightly erotic play. Teachers may place stool-ball among the ancestors of the later bat-and-ball sports. Related early games include the various forms of the stool or wicket contest. The image rewards attention to the difference between the domestic target and the later formal wicket.
Also Known As
stoolball
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