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

0.027 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.

The Rigs O' Barley

by Robert Burns

0.0714 − 0.5838i

Drawing the boundary…

Pallor

by A. Mary F. Robinson

0.0550 − 0.5629i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

The Rigs O' Barley

by Robert Burns

It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonnie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie:
The time flew by wi' tentless heed,
'Till 'tween the late and early,
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed,
To see me through the barley.

The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley:
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;
I kiss'd her owre and owre again,
Amang the rigs o' barley.

I lock'd her in my fond embrace!
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place.
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright.
That shone that hour so clearly?
She ay shall bless that happy night,
Amang the rigs o' barley!

I hae been blithe wi' comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinkin';
I hae been joyfu' gath'rin' gear;
I hae been happy thinkin':
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubled fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.

CHORUS.

Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonnie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.

Pallor

by A. Mary F. Robinson

The great white lilies in the grass
Are pallid as the smile of death;
For they remember still—alas!—
The graves they sprang from underneath.

The angels up in heaven are pale—
For all have died, when all is said;
Nor shall the lutes of Eden avail
To let them dream they are not dead.

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Track 1
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