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

Thomas Nashe Thomas Nashe

Poet B

Ben Jonson Ben Jonson
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 73% Blended 73%
Swap sides Another related pair
Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe

1567 – c. 1601 (~34)
1 live poem · English

Thomas Nashe, baptized on 26 November 1567 and probably born shortly before that date in Lowestoft, Suffolk, was one of the most brilliant, abrasive, inventive, and precarious figures of the English Renaissance. He died sometime after 1599 and is conventionally assigned a death date of about 1601, though the circumstances and exact date remain unknown. In a life that appears to have lasted little more than three deca…

“A traveller must have the back of an ass to bear all, a tongue like the tail of a dog to flatter all, the mouth of a hog to eat what is set before him, the ear of a merchant to hear all and say nothing.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Light Verse Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Fear
Listen Timeline Affinities
Ben Jonson

Ben Jonson

c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637 (~65)
5 live poems · English

Ben Jonson, baptized on 11 June 1572 and probably born on or very near that date, entered the world in Westminster at a moment when London’s theatrical culture was beginning to assume the force and richness that would make the English Renaissance famous. He died on 6 August 1637, having become, in the course of sixty-five turbulent years, England’s most formidable classical dramatist, one of its finest lyric poets, a…

“Truth is the trial of itself, and needs no other touch to prove it.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Dramatic Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Thomas Nashe
Ben Jonson
1567 1637
They overlapped for 30 years (1572–1601). When Ben Jonson was born, Thomas Nashe was about 5. Ben Jonson was about 29 when Thomas Nashe died.
Thomas Nashe in history Ben Jonson in history Years they were given

On the map

About 168 km separate Lowestoft, Suffolk, England from Westminster, London, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

Thomas Nashe

Ben Jonson

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.

No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.

Thomas Nashe only

death plague beauty mercy life face mortality strength plea world

Ben Jonson only

desire love kiss power celia wreath breath beloved drink persuasion connection tension

From the biographies

social london

Thomas Nashe: lowestoft, william nashe, janet nashe, the anatomy of absurdity, pierce penniless, a litany in time of plague, martin marprelate controversy, university wits. Ben Jonson: westminster, william camden, on my first son, on my first daughter, every man in his humour, the isle of dogs, gabriel spencer, war of the theatres.

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.

In Time of Plague
Thomas Nashe
69%
Compare
A Hymne to God the Father
Ben Jonson
In Time of Plague
Thomas Nashe
65%
Compare
To Celia
Ben Jonson
In Time of Plague
Thomas Nashe
64%
Compare
The Dreame
Ben Jonson
In Time of Plague
Thomas Nashe
61%
Compare
That Women Are but Mens Shaddowes
Ben Jonson
In Time of Plague
Thomas Nashe
56%
Compare
Begging Another
Ben Jonson

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1572 The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
1574 Publication of Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas
1575 Publication of 'Cantiones Sacrae'
1575 Publication of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'
1592 Imprisonment for Religious Activities
1595 Execution at Tyburn
1600 English East India Company Chartered
1600 William Gilbert publishes De Magnete and coins electricus

Thomas Nashe

1582 Education at Cambridge University
1589 Publication of 'The Anatomy of Absurdity'
1590 Involvement in the Marprelate Controversy
1592 Publication of 'Pierce Penniless'
1594 Patronage by the Earl of Southampton
1594 Publication of 'The Terrors of the Night'
1594 Publication of 'The Unfortunate Traveller'
1599 Publication of 'Lenten Stuff'

Ben Jonson

1580 Jonson's Education at Westminster School
1597 Imprisonment for 'The Isle of Dogs'
1598 Duel with Gabriel Spencer
1598 Success of 'Every Man in His Humour'
1606 Publication of 'Volpone'
1610 Publication of 'The Alchemist'
1614 Publication of 'Bartholomew Fair'
1616 Appointment as Poet Laureate

Emotional landscapes

Thomas Nashe: Despair, Sorrow, Fear. Ben Jonson: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality.

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