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.

After the death of my mother, 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.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

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.

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

William Watson William Watson

Poet B

Arthur Symons Arthur Symons
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 77% Poems 87% Blended 81%
Swap sides Another related pair
William Watson

William Watson

2 August 1858 – 11 August 1935 (~77)
2 live poems · English

William Watson was born on 2 August 1858 at Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire, and died on 11 August 1935 at Ditchling, Sussex. During his lifetime he occupied a curious and at times conspicuous place in English literary culture. He was praised as one of the finest inheritors of the Victorian poetic tradition, repeatedly mentioned as a possible Poet Laureate, admired for his disciplined music and moral seriousness, and…

“And after all, the highest beauty in art is, perhaps, a transcendent propriety.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Arthur Symons

Arthur Symons

28 February 1865 – 22 January 1945 (~80)
23 live poems · English

Arthur Symons was born on 28 February 1865 at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales, into a household shaped by religious discipline, frequent movement, and intellectual aspiration. He was the son of the Reverend Arthur Symons, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and Mary Ann Symons. His father’s ministry required the family to move from place to place, and the boy’s childhood was therefore less rooted in one local communit…

“For nearly a year I have been normal, human, like other people, no longer isolated from the men and women whom I met in the street.”

Neighbourhood: Decadent Poets, Edwardian Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder

In time

William Watson
Arthur Symons
1858 1945
They overlapped for 71 years (1865–1935). When Arthur Symons was born, William Watson was about 7. Arthur Symons was about 70 when William Watson died.

On the map

About 329 km separate Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire, England from Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales. 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

William Watson: burley-in-wharfedale, liverpool, the prince’s quest, wordsworth’s grave, lachrymae musarum, the purple east, the year of shame, victorian poetic tradition. Arthur Symons: milford haven, wales, reverend arthur symons, days and nights, silhouettes, london literary life, rhymers' club, w. b. yeats.

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.

Estrangement
William Watson
81% beloved
Compare
Her Street
Arthur Symons
Estrangement
William Watson
81% beloved
Compare
After Love
Arthur Symons
Estrangement
William Watson
80% world, beloved
Compare
Love in Dreams
Arthur Symons
Estrangement
William Watson
78%
Compare
Quest
Arthur Symons
The Key-Board
William Watson
78% music
Compare
In the Oratory
Arthur Symons
Estrangement
William Watson
77% beauty, life
Compare
L'Amour Par Terre
Arthur Symons

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

William Watson: Sorrow, Longing, Despair. Arthur Symons: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder.

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