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.

After the death of my mother, 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.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the 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.

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 U

Ubi sunt motif

Concept
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 motif expressing nostalgia and questioning the whereabouts of past things

Detailed Definition
The ubi sunt motif (“where are they?”) is a medieval poetic convention lamenting the transience of life by posing rhetorical questions about vanished people, places, or glory; it evokes melancholy through nostalgic interrogation of time’s erasure.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ubi sunt motif: "The Wanderer": "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" (Villon); Old English "The Ruin": "Where are the horse and rider?"; Contemporary: "Ubi Sunt" by Tracy K. Smith laments lost futures; Claudia Rankine asks "Where are the black boys?" in "Citizen"
Additional Notes
Ubi sunt motif: Latin for “where are they?”; a medieval poetic theme lamenting the transience of life and glory (e.g., “Where are the snows of yesteryear?”); evokes nostalgia and memento mori.
Also Known As
Where are motif Loss lament Vanished things theme Nostalgic question Ubi sunt
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