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

Felicia Dorothea Hemans Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Poet B

Francis James Child Francis James Child
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.

Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 58% Poems 84% Blended 70%
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…

“If my sister were near me now, I should lay my head down upon her shoulder and cry like a tired child.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities
Francis James Child

Francis James Child

1 February 1825 – 11 September 1896 (~71)
3 live poems · English

Francis James Child, born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 1 February 1825 and dead in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on 11 September 1896, became one of the most consequential preservers of traditional verse in the English-speaking world. He was not a collector in the modern fieldworker’s sense: he did not chiefly travel from village to village with a notebook, recording singers’ performances and melodies as later folklorist…

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Francis James Child
1793 1896
They overlapped for 11 years (1825–1835). When Francis James Child was born, Felicia Dorothea Hemans was about 32. Francis James Child was about 10 when Felicia Dorothea Hemans died.
Felicia Dorothea Hemans in history Francis James Child in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,023 km separate Liverpool, England from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Francis James Child

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

love memory mother

Felicia Dorothea Hemans only

life world romantic nature dead flowers father ship battle casabianca courage obedience

Francis James Child only

folk composer herbs heath lord betrayal lover heart death bell bonny social

From the biographies

Felicia Dorothea Hemans: liverpool, gwrych, abergele, casabianca, the forest sanctuary, modern greece, the sceptic, dartmoor prison. Francis James Child: boston, harvard college, child's ballads, the twa sisters, lord randal, tam lin, sir patrick spens, barbara allen.

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.

I Go, Sweet Friends!
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
75% memory, love
Compare
Scarborough Fair
Francis James Child
The Myrtle Bough
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
73%
Compare
Scarborough Fair
Francis James Child
Bring Flowers
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
71%
Compare
Scarborough Fair
Francis James Child
Casabianca
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
71%
Compare
Lord Randall
Francis James Child
The Parting Song
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
70% love
Compare
Lord Randall
Francis James Child
The Dial of Flowers
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
70%
Compare
Scarborough Fair
Francis James Child

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1825 Death of Siblings
1830 Indian Removal Act of 1830
1831 Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction in London
1831 HMS Beagle Begins Darwin's Survey Voyage
1831 Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction
1831 Publication of 'Canti'
1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

1800 Relocation to Wales and Early Literary Development
1808 First Poetry Collection Published
1812 Marriage to Captain Alfred Hemans
1812 Publication of 'The Domestic Affections'
1818 Separation from Captain Hemans
1825 Publication of 'The Forest Sanctuary'
1828 Publication of 'Records of Woman'
1835 Death of Felicia Dorothea Hemans

Francis James Child

1830 Early Education of Francis James Child
1856 Marriage to Mary A. Child
1857 Publication of 'Ballads and Songs'
1860 Friendship with John Greenleaf Whittier
1876 Appointment as Professor at Harvard University
1882 Publication of 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'
1890 Publication of 'The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens'
1896 Death of Francis James Child

Emotional landscapes

Felicia Dorothea Hemans: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow. Francis James Child: Sorrow, Longing, Despair.

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