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.

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



Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.039 apart. A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.

This number is read from the build of the lines. The bright edge is that number, carried outward until the pattern repeats.

Loves Horoscope

by Richard Crashaw

0.4169 − 0.2604i

Drawing the boundary…

Go Away, Death!

by Alfred Austin

0.4311 − 0.2965i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.

Loves Horoscope

by Richard Crashaw

Love, brave vertues younger Brother,
Erst hath made my Heart a Mother,
Shee consults the conscious Spheares,
To calculate her young sons yeares.
Shee askes if sad, or saving powers,
Gave Omen to his infant howers,
Shee asks each starre that then stood by,
If poore Love shall live or dye.

Ah my Heart, is that the way?
Are these the Beames that rule thy Day?
Thou know'st a Face in whose each looke,
Beauty layes ope loves Fortune-booke,
On whose faire revolutions wait
The obsequious motions of Loves fate.
Ah my Heart, her eyes and shee,
Have taught thee new Astrology.
How e're Loves native houres were set,
What ever starry Synod met,
'Tis in the mercy of her eye,
If poore Love shall live or dye.

If those sharpe Rayes putting on
Points of Death bid Love be gone
(Though the Heavens in counsell sate,
To crowne an uncontrouled Fate,
Though their best Aspects, twin'd upon
The kindest Constellation,
Cast amorous glances on his Birth,
And whisper'd the confederate Earth
To pave his pathes with all the good
That warmes the Bed of youth and blood)
Love ha's no plea against her eye
Beauty frownes, and Love must dye.

But if her milder influence move;
And guild the hopes of humble Love:
(Though heavens inauspicious eye
Lay blacke on loves Nativitye;
Though every Diamond in Joves crowne
Fixt his forehead to a frowne,)
Her Eye a strong appeale can give,
Beauty smiles and love shall live.

O if Love shall live, o where
But in her Eye, or in her Eare,
In her Brest, or in her Breath,
Shall I hide poore Love from Death?
For in the life ought else can give,
Love shall dye although he live.

Or if Love shall dye, o where
But in her Eye, or in her Eare,
In her Breath, or in her Breast,
Shall I Build his funerall Nest?
While Love shall thus entombed lye,
Love shall live, although he dye.

Go Away, Death!

by Alfred Austin

Go away, Death!
You have come too soon. 
To sunshine and song I but just awaken, 
And the dew on my heart is undried and unshaken; 
Come back at noon.

Go away, Death!
What a short reprieve!
The mists of the morning have vanished, I roam 
Through a world bright with wonder, and feel it my home;
Come back at eve.

Go away, Death!
See, it still is light.
Over earth broods a quiet more blissful than glee. 
And the beauty of sadness lies low on the sea;
Come back at night.

Come to me, Death!
I no more would stay.
The night-owl hath silenced the linnet and lark, 
And the wailing of wisdom sounds sad in the dark;
Take me away.

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