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 W

wan

Adjective
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

Wan is an Adjective meaning pale, faded, or lacking healthy color, often suggesting weakness, illness, weariness, or lifelessness.

Detailed Definition
The word wan describes a dull or unusually pale appearance, especially in a person, face, flower, or light source. In poetry, it often conveys more than color: it can suggest fading vitality, sadness, exhaustion, or a weakened condition. In Francis Hastings Doyle’s poem, wan emphasizes the rose’s pale, withering stillness before the dew-drop restores it.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Francis Hastings Doyle’s “Sympathy,” the rose is described as having a “wan repose”: “New withering on her wan repose.” Here, wan means pale and faded, while repose suggests the rose’s quiet, still condition. The phrase presents the flower as weakened and losing its freshness, making the life-giving effect of the humble dew-drop more meaningful.
Additional Notes
Wan is often associated with faces, flowers, the moon, or other things that appear pale or drained of color. It can also suggest emotional or physical weakness, as in “a wan smile” or “a wan expression.” Related words include pale, faded, ashen, sallow, bleak, and languid; however, wan often has a poetic or slightly old-fashioned tone. The word comes from Old English wann, meaning “dark” or “dull-colored.” Its meaning later developed toward “pale” or “sickly-looking.”
Also Known As
Peely-wally
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