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

Julia Ward Howe Julia Ward Howe

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.

Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 72% Blended 72%
Swap sides Another related pair
Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe

27 May 1819 – 17 October 1910 (~91)
1 live poem · English

On a cold November morning in 1861, Julia Ward Howe awoke in her room at Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C., with verses forming in her mind. She had visited Union Army camps the previous day, witnessing thousands of soldiers preparing for battle while singing "John Brown's Body." Now, in the pre-dawn darkness, words came to her with unusual clarity and force. Rising quietly so as not to disturb her sleeping childre…

“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Spirituality
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…

“It is God's own thought put into practical form.”

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

In time

Julia Ward Howe
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
1819 1919
They overlapped for 61 years (1850–1910). When Ella Wheeler Wilcox was born, Julia Ward Howe was about 31. Ella Wheeler Wilcox was about 60 when Julia Ward Howe died.
Julia Ward Howe in history Ella Wheeler Wilcox in history Years they were given

On the map

About 1,249 km separate New York City, New York, USA from Johnstown Center, Wisconsin, USA. Both have ground in New York City and New York.

Julia Ward Howe

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

death social life

Julia Ward Howe only

laborer ethical hope charity

Ella Wheeler Wilcox only

love pain suffering self spiritual grief light soul passion sorrow power memory

From the biographies

women social

Julia Ward Howe: washington d.c., battle hymn of the republic, john brown's body, passion flowers, samuel gridley howe, american woman suffrage association, mother's day proclamation, municipal housekeeping. 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.

To Death
Julia Ward Howe
77% death, social, life
Compare
If I Should Die
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To Death
Julia Ward Howe
75% death, social, life
Compare
Mockery
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To Death
Julia Ward Howe
73% life, ethical
Compare
The Two Kinds of People
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To Death
Julia Ward Howe
73% life
Compare
Earnestness
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To Death
Julia Ward Howe
72% death
Compare
Courage
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To Death
Julia Ward Howe
72% hope
Compare
The Call
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

Julia Ward Howe

1830 Education at the New York City School for Girls
1843 Marriage to Samuel Gridley Howe
1852 Involvement in the Women's Suffrage Movement
1854 Publication of 'Passion Flowers'
1861 Publication of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'
1868 Founding of the New England Women's Club
1872 Founding of Mother's Day
1876 Travel to Europe for literary and social engagements

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

Julia Ward Howe: Irony, Sorrow, Spirituality. Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Longing, Spirituality, Sorrow.

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