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.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this 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

Felicia Dorothea Hemans Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Poet B

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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 73% Poems 86% Blended 79%
Swap sides Another related pair
Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

25 September 1793 – 16 May 1835 (~42)
11 live poems · English

Felicia Dorothea Hemans, born Felicia Dorothea Browne on 25 September 1793 and dead on 16 May 1835, was among the most celebrated poets of the early nineteenth century. In her lifetime she was read with an enthusiasm now difficult to imagine: her poems circulated throughout Britain, Ireland, the United States, and the British Empire; they appeared in annuals, schoolbooks, anthologies, newspapers, and domestic parlors…

“In my opinion, there can be no real grandeur unless mind is made the ruling power, and its ascendancy asserted, even amidst the wildest storms of passion.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861 (~55)
2 live poems · English

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on March 6, 1806, at Coxhoe Hall in County Durham, England, the eldest of twelve children to Edward Barrett Moulton Barrett and Mary Graham Clarke. Her arrival marked the first in her family born in England in over two centuries, as the Barrett fortune stemmed from vast sugar plantations in Jamaica. The family soon moved to Hope End, a sprawling estate near Ledbury in Herefordshire…

“I do not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism and it is possible enough that I might not be altogether obedient to yours.”

Neighbourhood: Love Poets, Political Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Longing, Tenderness

In time

Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
1793 1861
They overlapped for 30 years (1806–1835). When Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born, Felicia Dorothea Hemans was about 13. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was about 29 when Felicia Dorothea Hemans died.

On the map

About 161 km separate Liverpool, England from Durham, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

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

women

Felicia Dorothea Hemans: liverpool, gwrych, abergele, casabianca, the forest sanctuary, modern greece, the sceptic, dartmoor prison. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: county durham, hope end, the battle of marathon, the seraphim and other poems, the cry of the children, robert browning, sonnets from the portuguese, aurora leigh.

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.

Thou Wakest from Rosy Sleep
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
78%
Compare
How Do I Love Thee?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Parting Song
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
75% love
Compare
How Do I Love Thee?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I Go, Sweet Friends!
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
75% love
Compare
How Do I Love Thee?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Myrtle Bough
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
75%
Compare
How Do I Love Thee?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Landing of the Pilgrims
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
75%
Compare
How Do I Love Thee?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Bring Flowers
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
74% life
Compare
The Prospect
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Felicia Dorothea Hemans: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow. Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Spirituality, Longing, Tenderness.

Skip to main content