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

Barnabe Googe Barnabe Googe

Poet B

Sir Philip Sidney Sir Philip Sidney
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
Barnabe Googe

Barnabe Googe

11 June 1540 – February 1594 (~54)
1 live poem · English

In the rich tapestry of Elizabethan literature, certain figures stand as crucial bridges between the medieval past and the Renaissance flowering that would produce Shakespeare, Spenser, and Marlowe. Among these transitional figures, Barnabe Googe occupies a unique and often underappreciated position as one of the earliest English poets to fully embrace Continental Renaissance forms while maintaining a distinctly Engl…

“I hear live amongst a sort of Scythians, wanting the comfort of my country, my poor wife and children.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Irony
Listen Timeline Affinities
Sir Philip Sidney

Sir Philip Sidney

30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586 (~32)
3 live poems · English

In the pantheon of Elizabethan literature, few figures embody the Renaissance ideal as completely as Sir Philip Sidney. Born into privilege on November 30, 1554, at Penshurst Place in Kent, Sidney would live only thirty-one years, yet his brief existence would illuminate the literary landscape of England with such brilliance that his influence continues to resonate more than four centuries after his death. His life r…

“Love my memory, cherish my friends; their faith to me may assure you they were honest. But, above all, govern your will and affections by the will and word of your Creator.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Barnabe Googe
Sir Philip Sidney
1540 1594
They overlapped for 33 years (1554–1586). When Sir Philip Sidney was born, Barnabe Googe was about 14. Barnabe Googe was about 46 when Sir Philip Sidney died.
Barnabe Googe in history Sir Philip Sidney in history Years they were given

On the map

About 225 km separate Lincolnshire, England from Penshurst Place, Kent, England. Both have ground in England.

Barnabe Googe

Sir Philip Sidney

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

desire love

Barnabe Googe only

sight pain self mind reason

Sir Philip Sidney only

beloved lover beauty social refusal world bells death female ring soul heart

From the biographies

continental protestant

Barnabe Googe: lincolnshire, eclogues, epitaphs, and sonnets, cambridge university, mary tudor, continental renaissance, tottel's miscellany, agricultural improvement, protestant theology. Sir Philip Sidney: penshurst place, battle of zutphen, fulke greville, the countess of pembroke's arcadia, old arcadia, new arcadia, astrophil and stella, robert dudley.

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.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Barnabe Googe
77% love
Compare
Ring out your bells
Sir Philip Sidney
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Barnabe Googe
77% desire, love
Compare
Only Joy, Now Here You Are
Sir Philip Sidney
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Barnabe Googe
74% love
Compare
The Bargain
Sir Philip Sidney

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1554 The Coffee Plant Reaches Constantinople and Sparks the First Coffeehouse
1556 Appointment as Master of the Chapel Royal
1556 The Shaanxi Earthquake
1557 Publication of *Tottel's Miscellany*
1558 Elizabeth I Becomes Queen of England
1559 Coronation of Elizabeth I
1560 The Eclipse that Inspired Tycho Brahe
1564 Shakespeare Born

Barnabe Googe

1550 Education in Lincolnshire
1563 Publication of 'Eglogs, Epytaphes, and Sonnettes'
1570 Relocation to London
1575 Friendship with Sir Philip Sidney
1578 Publication of 'The Fable of the Bees'
1580 Involvement in Agricultural Improvement
1583 Publication of 'The Tale of the Two Lovers'
1585 Patronage from the Earl of Southampton

Sir Philip Sidney

1564 Education at Shrewsbury School
1572 Travel to Europe for Grand Tour
1583 Appointment as Ambassador to the Netherlands
1583 Marriage to Frances Walsingham
1586 Wounded at the Battle of Zutphen
1590 Influence on Shakespeare and Later Poets
1591 Publication of 'Astrophel and Stella'
1595 Publication of 'The Defence of Poesy'

Emotional landscapes

Barnabe Googe: Longing, Sorrow, Irony. Sir Philip Sidney: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.

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