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

George Henry Boker George Henry Boker
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 67% Poems 77% Blended 71%
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…

“I thought within myself, I will not write what I know would only sadden so kind a heart; I will wait till the sunshine breaks in.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities
George Henry Boker

George Henry Boker

6 October 1823 – 2 January 1890 (~67)
2 live poems · English

In the glittering literary salons of nineteenth-century Philadelphia, where gas lamps cast their warm glow over earnest conversations about poetry and politics, one figure stood at the intersection of art and public service with uncommon grace. George Henry Boker was born on October 6, 1823, into a world of privilege and promise that would shape his destiny as one of America's most accomplished—if underappreciated—po…

“There are no such subjects for historical tragedy on earth as are to be found in the Spanish history of that period.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Dramatic Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Fear
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Felicia Dorothea Hemans
George Henry Boker
1793 1890
They overlapped for 13 years (1823–1835). When George Henry Boker was born, Felicia Dorothea Hemans was about 30. George Henry Boker was about 12 when Felicia Dorothea Hemans died.
Felicia Dorothea Hemans in history George Henry Boker in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,456 km separate Liverpool, England from Camden, New Jersey, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Felicia Dorothea Hemans

George Henry Boker

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

life world dead ship

Felicia Dorothea Hemans only

romantic love nature memory mother flowers father battle casabianca courage obedience house

George Henry Boker only

death soldier dirge philosophical shark sailor body sick

From the biographies

Felicia Dorothea Hemans: liverpool, gwrych, abergele, casabianca, the forest sanctuary, modern greece, the sceptic, dartmoor prison. George Henry Boker: philadelphia, the book of the dead, the lessons of life, calaynos, francesca da rimini, bayard taylor, richard henry stoddard, union league club.

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.

Casabianca
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
71%
Compare
Dirge for a Soldier
George Henry Boker
I Go, Sweet Friends!
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
70% life
Compare
Dirge for a Soldier
George Henry Boker
The Myrtle Bough
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
70%
Compare
Dirge for a Soldier
George Henry Boker
Bring Flowers
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
69% life, dead
Compare
Dirge for a Soldier
George Henry Boker
The Wakening
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
67% life
Compare
Dirge for a Soldier
George Henry Boker
Casabianca
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
67% ship
Compare
The Shark
George Henry Boker

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1823 Byron Joins the Greek War of Independence
1823 Publication of 'The Poems of Jeremiah Joseph Callanan'
1824 Lord Byron Arrives in Missolonghi to Lead the Greek Forces
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'

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

George Henry Boker

1840 Education at the University of Pennsylvania
1851 Publication of 'The Betrothed'
1861 Involvement in the Civil War
1865 Friendship with Walt Whitman
1869 Appointment as U.S. Minister to Russia
1882 Publication of 'The Book of the Dead'
1886 Publication of 'The Poet and the Critic'
1888 Death of his wife, Mary E. Boker

Emotional landscapes

Felicia Dorothea Hemans: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow. George Henry Boker: Sorrow, Despair, Fear.

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