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.

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

Lady Jane Wilde Lady Jane Wilde

Poet B

Ella Wheeler Wilcox Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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 67% Poems 86% Blended 75%
Swap sides Another related pair
Lady Jane Wilde

Lady Jane Wilde

27 December 1821 – 3 February 1896 (~75)
3 live poems · English

In the pantheon of Irish literary figures, few names carry the weight of both political revolution and artistic brilliance quite like Lady Jane Wilde. Born Jane Francesca Elgee on December 27, 1821, in Wexford, Ireland, she would become one of the most influential voices of Irish nationalism, a celebrated poet writing under the pseudonym "Speranza," and the mother of one of literature's most iconic figures, Oscar Wil…

“The old beliefs, the old traditions, and the old legends of Ireland are not dead, but live in the hearts of the people.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Irish Poets, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Despair, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

5 November 1850 – 30 October 1919 (~69)
22 live poems · English

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was born on 5 November 1850 in Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, a rural community whose fields, seasons, family routines, and wide horizons remained central to her imaginative life. She died on 30 October 1919 at her home in Short Beach, Connecticut, only days before her sixty-ninth birthday. Between those dates she became one of the most widely read poets in the United States. Her name was known in p…

“Regard the troubles and cares you encounter as the punching bags of fate, given you to develop your spiritual muscle.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Lady Jane Wilde
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1821 1919
They overlapped for 47 years (1850–1896). When Ella Wheeler Wilcox was born, Lady Jane Wilde was about 29. Ella Wheeler Wilcox was about 46 when Lady Jane Wilde died.
Lady Jane Wilde in history Ella Wheeler Wilcox in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,902 km separate Dublin, Ireland from Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Lady Jane Wilde

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

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

social life suffering power

Lady Jane Wilde only

voice world poor poverty speranza attendite popule nymph fisherman water beauty realm

Ella Wheeler Wilcox only

love pain self death spiritual grief light soul passion sorrow memory fate

From the biographies

social woman

Lady Jane Wilde: wexford, speranza, oscar wilde, the nation, the lament of the irish emigrant, jacta alea est, great famine, william wilde. Ella Wheeler Wilcox: johnstown center, short beach, solitude, poems of passion, robert m. wilcox, positive thinking, the voice of the voiceless, women's suffrage.

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 Voice of the Poor
Lady Jane Wilde
75% life, suffering
Compare
Existence
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Voice of the Poor
Lady Jane Wilde
75%
Compare
Desolation
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Voice of the Poor
Lady Jane Wilde
75% suffering
Compare
Let me Lean Hard
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Voice of the Poor
Lady Jane Wilde
74%
Compare
The Call
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Voice of the Poor
Lady Jane Wilde
73% social, life
Compare
Mockery
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Voice of the Poor
Lady Jane Wilde
73% life
Compare
The Two Kinds of People
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1850 Publication of 'In Memoriam A.H.H.'
1851 Publication of Moby-Dick
1854 John Snow Traces the Broad Street Pump
1854 Publication of 'Walden'
1856 Invention of the Bessemer Process for Mass Steel Production
1856 Mauveine Synthetic Dye Invention
1856 Perkin's Accidental Discovery of Mauveine
1857 Pasteur Demonstrates the Biological Basis of Fermentation

Lady Jane Wilde

1836 Education and Early Literary Influences of Lady Jane Wilde
1851 Marriage to William Wilde
1854 Birth of Oscar Wilde
1867 Involvement with the Irish Nationalist Movement
1888 Publication of 'Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland'
1890 Recognition as a Leading Literary Figure
1896 Death of William Wilde

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

1881 Move to New York City
1883 Publication of 'Solitude'
1884 Marriage to Robert Wilcox
1885 Relocation to New York City
1889 Publication of 'Poems of Power'
1911 Death of Robert Wilcox
1918 Publication of 'The World and I'
1919 Final Years and Legacy

Emotional landscapes

Lady Jane Wilde: Longing, Despair, Sorrow. Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow.

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