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


Compare Poets

Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.

Poet A

Edmund Clarence Stedman Edmund Clarence Stedman

Poet B

James Russell Lowell James Russell Lowell
Compare two related contemporaries

A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.

Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 74% Poems 82% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
Edmund Clarence Stedman

Edmund Clarence Stedman

8 October 1833 – 18 January 1908 (~75)
3 live poems · English

In the heart of nineteenth-century American letters stands a figure who defied easy categorization, a man who straddled two seemingly incompatible worlds with remarkable grace. Edmund Clarence Stedman, born on October 8, 1833, in Hartford, Connecticut, would become known as the "Bard of Wall Street," a sobriquet that captured both the paradox and the peculiar achievement of his life. For forty-five years, he navigate…

“Poetry is rhythmical, imaginative language, expressing the invention, taste, thought, passion, and insight of the human soul.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities
James Russell Lowell

James Russell Lowell

22 February 1819 – 12 August 1891 (~72)
3 live poems · English

In the pantheon of American letters, few figures cast as long or complex a shadow as James Russell Lowell (1819-1891). Poet, critic, editor, diplomat, and professor, Lowell embodied the intellectual ferment of nineteenth-century New England with a breadth that few of his contemporaries could match. His life spanned the tumultuous decades from the early republic through the Gilded Age, and his voice—whether wielding t…

“Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets, Social Justice Poets, Transcendentalists
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Edmund Clarence Stedman
James Russell Lowell
1819 1908
They overlapped for 59 years (1833–1891). When Edmund Clarence Stedman was born, James Russell Lowell was about 14. Edmund Clarence Stedman was about 58 when James Russell Lowell died.
Edmund Clarence Stedman in history James Russell Lowell in history Years they were given

On the map

About 150 km separate Hartford, Connecticut, USA from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

James Russell Lowell

Open both on the History Atlas

Themes they return to

Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.

Shared

nature life

Edmund Clarence Stedman only

beloved love death surf waves pearls world power ocean intimate bridal lover

James Russell Lowell only

snow grief loss divine spiritual faith beggar soul violet pilgrim pine brook

From the biographies

Edmund Clarence Stedman: hartford, bard of wall street, elizabeth clementine stedman, new york city, the norwich tribune, how old brown took harper's ferry, pan in wall street, yale university. James Russell Lowell: boston, harvard college, the biglow papers, poems, the present crisis, maria white, william wetmore story, abolitionism.

Poems that secretly rhyme

The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.

Surf
Edmund Clarence Stedman
73%
Compare
She Came and Went
James Russell Lowell
Surf
Edmund Clarence Stedman
73% nature
Compare
The Beggar
James Russell Lowell
The Sad Bridal
Edmund Clarence Stedman
71% life
Compare
She Came and Went
James Russell Lowell
Custer
Edmund Clarence Stedman
69%
Compare
She Came and Went
James Russell Lowell
Custer
Edmund Clarence Stedman
68%
Compare
The First Snow-Fall
James Russell Lowell
Surf
Edmund Clarence Stedman
68%
Compare
The First Snow-Fall
James Russell Lowell

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'
1836 Publication of 'Nature'
1837 Publication of 'Life of Sir Walter Scott'
1842 First Pale Lager Brewed in Pilsen
1845 Great Famine in Ireland (1845)
1845 The Outbreak of the Irish Potato Famine
1845 Thoreau's Walden Experiment Begins

Edmund Clarence Stedman

1836 Relocation to Plainfield, New Jersey
1846 Education at Norwich Academy
1853 First Published Poem
1856 Marriage to Ellen Stedman
1860 Publication of 'Poems' Collection
1895 Publication of 'The Victorian Poets'
1900 Death of His Wife, Ellen
1905 Publication of 'The Poets of America'

James Russell Lowell

1834 Education at Harvard University
1844 Marriage to Maria White
1848 Publication of A Fable for Critics
1848 Publication of The Biglow Papers
1848 Publication of The Vision of Sir Launfal
1853 Death of Maria White
1855 Appointment as Professor at Harvard
1877 Appointment as U.S. Minister to Spain

Emotional landscapes

Edmund Clarence Stedman: Sorrow, Tenderness, Longing. James Russell Lowell: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness.

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