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

0.028 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.

Vespers

by A. A. Milne

−0.1058 − 0.2813i

Drawing the boundary…

The Indifferent Mariner

by Arthur Macy

−0.1119 − 0.3089i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

Vespers

by A. A. Milne

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath to-night?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy—I quite forgot.

If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing-gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.

Mine has a hood, and I lie in bed,
And pull the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.

Oh! Thank you, God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember it. God bless Me.

Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.

The Indifferent Mariner

by Arthur Macy

I'm a tough old salt, and it's never I care
A penny which way the wind is,
Or whether I sight Cape Finisterre,
Or make a port at the Indies.

Some folks steer for a port to trade,
And some steer north for the whaling;
Yet never I care a damn just where
I sail, so long's I'm sailing.

You never can stop the wind when it blows,
And you can't stop the rain from raining;
Then why, oh, why, go a-piping of your eye
When there's no sort o' use in complaining?

My face is browned and my lungs are sound,
And my hands they are big and calloused.
I've a little brown jug I sometimes hug,
And a little bread and meat for ballast.

But I keep no log of my daily grog,
For what's the use o' being bothered?
I drink a little more when the wind's offshore,
And most when the wind's from the no'th'ard.

Of course with a chill if I'm took quite ill,
And my legs get weak and toddly,
At the jug I pull, and turn in full,
And sleep the sleep of the godly.

But whether I do or whether I don't,
Or whether the jug's my failing,
It's never I care a damn just where
I sail, so long's I'm sailing.

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Track 1
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