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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I 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

Theodore Tilton Theodore Tilton

Poet B

Frederick Tennyson Frederick Tennyson
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 75% Poems 81% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
Theodore Tilton

Theodore Tilton

2 October 1835 – 29 May 1907 (~72)
2 live poems · English

Theodore Tilton stands as one of America's most complex literary figures of the nineteenth century—a man whose poetry spoke to universal truths about the human condition while his personal life became entangled in one of the most scandalous trials of the Victorian era. Born on October 2, 1835, in New York City, and dying in self-imposed exile in Paris on May 29, 1907, Tilton's seventy-two years encompassed the full s…

“Journalism is an immense power, that threatens soon to supersede sermons, lectures, and books.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities
Frederick Tennyson

Frederick Tennyson

5 June 1807 – 26 February 1898 (~91)
2 live poems · English

Frederick Tennyson was born on 5 June 1807 at Somersby rectory in Lincolnshire, the eldest child of the Reverend George Clayton Tennyson and Elizabeth Fytche Tennyson. He died on 26 February 1898, at Belle Vue House in Jersey, aged ninety. The dates of his life place him almost exactly within the long Victorian century, though his sensibility was formed earlier, amid the unsettled intellectual climate of the Regency…

Neighbourhood: Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Theodore Tilton
Frederick Tennyson
1807 1907
They overlapped for 64 years (1835–1898). When Theodore Tilton was born, Frederick Tennyson was about 28. Theodore Tilton was about 63 when Frederick Tennyson died.
Theodore Tilton in history Frederick Tennyson in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,521 km separate New York City, New York, USA from Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Theodore Tilton

Frederick Tennyson

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

Theodore Tilton only

death king ring pain wealth wisdom lazarus christ voice tomb resurrection breath

Frederick Tennyson only

world memory flowers light garden aged lamp beauty wind summer spring remembered

From the biographies

Theodore Tilton: new york city, paris, elizabeth richards tilton, henry ward beecher, the king's ring, abolitionist movement, the independent, second great awakening. Frederick Tennyson: somersby rectory, lincolnshire, alfred lord tennyson, trinity college cambridge, greek literature, browne medal, cambridge apostles, maria giuliotti.

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.

The King's Ring
Theodore Tilton
77% life
Compare
Old Age
Frederick Tennyson
The King's Ring
Theodore Tilton
77%
Compare
In Old Age
Frederick Tennyson
Soliloquy of Lazarus
Theodore Tilton
70% life
Compare
Old Age
Frederick Tennyson
Soliloquy of Lazarus
Theodore Tilton
69%
Compare
In Old Age
Frederick Tennyson

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1836 Publication of 'Nature'
1837 Publication of 'Life of Sir Walter Scott'
1842 First Pale Lager Brewed in Pilsen
1845 Great Famine in Ireland (1845)
1845 The Outbreak of the Irish Potato Famine
1845 Thoreau's Walden Experiment Begins
1846 Publication of Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
1846 Thoreau's Arrest for Civil Disobedience

Theodore Tilton

1851 Education at the University of the City of New York
1856 Marriage to Elizabeth Tilton
1861 Publication of 'The New York Independent'
1865 Involvement in the Abolitionist Movement
1867 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of Theodore Tilton'
1872 Scandal and Trial Involving Victoria Woodhull
1880 Relocation to Paris
1897 Death of Elizabeth Tilton

Frederick Tennyson

1826 Enrollment at Trinity College, Cambridge
1837 Publication of 'Poems by Frederick Tennyson'
1840 Marriage to Emily Sellwood
1847 Publication of 'The Lover's Tale'
1850 Death of his father, George Clayton Tennyson
1858 Publication of 'The Death of the Old Year'
1865 Death of his wife, Emily Tennyson
1870 Publication of 'The New Year'

Emotional landscapes

Theodore Tilton: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder. Frederick Tennyson: Sorrow, Longing, Despair.

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