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



Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.034 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.

Come, gentle god of soft desire

by James Thomson

−0.1082 − 0.6105i

Drawing the boundary…

One Foot on Sea, and One on Shore

by Christina Rossetti

−0.0750 − 0.6174i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

Come, gentle god of soft desire

by James Thomson

Come, gentle god of soft desire,
Come and possess my happy breast,
Not fury-like in flames and fire,
Or frantic folly's wildness drest;

But come in friendship's angel-guise:
Yet dearer thou than friendship art,
More tender spirit in thy eyes,
More sweet emotions at the heart.

O come with goodness in thy train,
With peace and pleasure void of storm,
And wouldst thou me for ever gain,
Put on Amanda's winning form.

One Foot on Sea, and One on Shore

by Christina Rossetti

"Oh tell me once and tell me twice
And tell me thrice to make it plain,
When we who part this weary day,
When we who part shall meet again."

"When windflowers blossom on the sea
And fishes skim along the plain,
Then we who part this weary day,
Then you and I shall meet again."

"Yet tell me once before we part,
Why need we part who part in pain?
If flowers must blossom on the sea,
Why, we shall never meet again.

"My cheeks are paler than a rose,
My tears are salter than the main,
My heart is like a lump of ice
If we must never meet again."

"Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,
And live or die, for all's in vain;
For life's in vain since we must part,
And parting must not meet again

"Till windflowers blossom on the sea,
And fishes skim along the plain;
Pale rose of roses let me be,
Your breaking heart breaks mine again."

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