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

Charles Sorley Charles Sorley

Poet B

Charlotte Mew Charlotte Mew
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 62% Poems 79% Blended 70%
Swap sides Another related pair
Charles Sorley

Charles Sorley

19 May 1895 – 13 October 1915 (~20)
8 live poems · English

Charles Hamilton Sorley was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 19 May 1895, and was killed in France on 13 October 1915, not yet twenty-one years old. His literary life lasted only a few years, and his published body of verse was small, much of it assembled after his death. Yet he occupies a singular place among the poets of the First World War. Unlike writers whose work became famous through prolonged service, later dis…

“It seems to me that Germany's only fault is a lack of real insight and sympathy with those who differ from her. We are not fighting a bully, but a bigot. Each side has a virtue for which it is fighting, and each that virtue's supplementary vice. But I think that tolerance is the larger virtue of the two.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Charlotte Mew

Charlotte Mew

15 November 1869 – 24 March 1928 (~59)
2 live poems · English

Charlotte Mew, born Charlotte Mary Mew on 15 November 1869 and dead on 24 March 1928, occupies a singular and often haunting position in English poetry. She was admired in her own lifetime by writers as different as Thomas Hardy, Virginia Woolf, Walter de la Mare, Siegfried Sassoon, and Ezra Pound, yet her name later slipped from general literary view before being powerfully recovered by feminist, queer, and modernis…

“I'm burning up my work.”

Neighbourhood: Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality, Edwardian Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow

In time

Charles Sorley
Charlotte Mew
1869 1928
They overlapped for 21 years (1895–1915). When Charles Sorley was born, Charlotte Mew was about 26. Charlotte Mew was about 46 when Charles Sorley died.

On the map

About 641 km separate Aberdeen, Scotland from London, 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

Charles Sorley: aberdeen, first world war, william ritchie sorley, robert graves, to germany, when you see millions of the mouthless dead, marlborough college, university college oxford. Charlotte Mew: london, thomas hardy, virginia woolf, the farmer's bride, the yellow book, bloomsbury, siegfried sassoon, ezra pound.

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.

Rooks
Charles Sorley
73% world, death
Compare
Rooms
Charlotte Mew
Rooks
Charles Sorley
72%
Compare
The Peddler
Charlotte Mew
East Kennet Church at Evening
Charles Sorley
70% world
Compare
Rooms
Charlotte Mew
East Kennet Church at Evening
Charles Sorley
70%
Compare
The Peddler
Charlotte Mew
If I have suffered pain
Charles Sorley
69%
Compare
The Peddler
Charlotte Mew
German Rain
Charles Sorley
68%
Compare
The Peddler
Charlotte Mew

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Charles Sorley: Sorrow, Longing, Despair. Charlotte Mew: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.

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