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

Alexander Anderson Alexander Anderson

Poet B

William Bell Scott William Bell Scott
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 72% Poems 82% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
Alexander Anderson

Alexander Anderson

30 April 1845 – 11 July 1909 (~64)
3 live poems · English

In the annals of Scottish literature, few stories are as compelling as that of Alexander Anderson, the railway worker who earned fame under the moniker "Surfaceman" and whose poetry bridged the gap between the gritty reality of industrial Scotland and the refined world of Victorian letters. Born into humble circumstances and rising through sheer determination and literary talent, Anderson's life embodies the democrat…

“I am a railman first, but my heart is ever bound to the simple songs of our Scottish soil and workers.”

Neighbourhood: Edwardian Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Nature Poets, Scottish Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Spirituality, Longing
William Bell Scott

William Bell Scott

12 September 1811 – 22 November 1890 (~79)
3 live poems · English

William Bell Scott was born in Edinburgh on 12 September 1811, into a family in which art was both a livelihood and an atmosphere. He was the eldest surviving son of Robert Scott, an engraver of considerable skill and a man of strong intellectual interests, and Ross Bell Scott. The household was not wealthy, but it was rich in artistic ambition, professional discipline, books, conversation, and the practical awarenes…

“To destroy it altogether would be like consigning some part of myself to a premature grave.”

Neighbourhood: Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Scottish Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Spirituality

In time

Alexander Anderson
William Bell Scott
1811 1909
They overlapped for 46 years (1845–1890). When Alexander Anderson was born, William Bell Scott was about 34. Alexander Anderson was about 45 when William Bell Scott died.

On the map

About 81 km separate Kirkconnel, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland from Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. Both have ground in Edinburgh.

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

From the biographies

scottish industrial

Alexander Anderson: kirkconnel, crocketford, dumfries and galloway, surfaceman, songs of the rail, two angels, cuddle doon, ballads and sonnets. William Bell Scott: edinburgh, david scott, paul's letters to his kinsfolk, the onward tide, newcastle upon tyne, trevelyan family, wallington hall, trustees' academy.

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.

A Sound Is in My Ear To-Day
Alexander Anderson
76%
Compare
Age
William Bell Scott
The Two Sowers
Alexander Anderson
71% life
Compare
Age
William Bell Scott
Cuddle Doon
Alexander Anderson
70% life
Compare
Age
William Bell Scott
Cuddle Doon
Alexander Anderson
70% life
Compare
Mare Serenitatis
William Bell Scott
A Sound Is in My Ear To-Day
Alexander Anderson
69% memory
Compare
Seeking Forgetfulness
William Bell Scott
A Sound Is in My Ear To-Day
Alexander Anderson
69%
Compare
Mare Serenitatis
William Bell Scott

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Alexander Anderson: Tenderness, Spirituality, Longing. William Bell Scott: Longing, Wonder, Spirituality.

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