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

James Whitcomb Riley James Whitcomb Riley

Poet B

Edgar Lee Masters Edgar Lee Masters
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 68% Poems 86% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
James Whitcomb Riley

James Whitcomb Riley

7 October 1849 – 22 July 1916 (~67)
3 live poems · English

In the pantheon of American poetry, few figures have captured the essence of rural life and childhood innocence with the enduring charm of James Whitcomb Riley. Known affectionately as the "Hoosier Poet," Riley transformed the everyday experiences of Indiana farm life into verses that resonated across the nation, making him one of the most beloved and commercially successful poets of the late 19th and early 20th cent…

“Keep 'em all sunny and sweet and wholesome clean to the core, or, if ever tragic, with sound hopes ultimate.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters

23 August 1868 – 5 March 1950 (~82)
25 live poems · English

In the pantheon of American literature, few poets have captured the essence of small-town life with such unflinching honesty and profound empathy as Edgar Lee Masters. Born in the twilight of the nineteenth century and dying in the shadow of World War II, Masters lived through one of the most transformative periods in American history. His masterwork, Spoon River Anthology, revolutionized American poetry by giving vo…

“Poetry must come out of the earth.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Death & Mortality, Dramatic Poets, Modernist Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing

In time

James Whitcomb Riley
Edgar Lee Masters
1849 1950
They overlapped for 49 years (1868–1916). When Edgar Lee Masters was born, James Whitcomb Riley was about 19. Edgar Lee Masters was about 48 when James Whitcomb Riley died.

On the map

About 835 km separate Greenfield, Indiana, USA from Garnett, Kansas, USA. Shared ground: United States.

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

success

James Whitcomb Riley: hoosier poet, greenfield indiana, the old swimmin'-hole, little orphant annie, john a. beeson, booth tarkington, eugene field, dialect poetry. Edgar Lee Masters: garnett, kansas, lewiston, illinois, spoon river anthology, william marion reedy, chicago renaissance, the blood of the prophets, a book of verses, helen m. jenkins.

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.

When Age Comes On
James Whitcomb Riley
79% world, memory
Compare
I Shall Never See You Again
Edgar Lee Masters
The Clover
James Whitcomb Riley
77% nature, world
Compare
Kildeer
Edgar Lee Masters
When Age Comes On
James Whitcomb Riley
77% world, memory
Compare
By the Waters of Babylon
Edgar Lee Masters
When Age Comes On
James Whitcomb Riley
76% memory
Compare
Angela Sanger
Edgar Lee Masters
The Dead Lover
James Whitcomb Riley
75% love, life
Compare
Fletcher McGee
Edgar Lee Masters
When Age Comes On
James Whitcomb Riley
75% world
Compare
Isaiah Beethoven
Edgar Lee Masters

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

James Whitcomb Riley: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness. Edgar Lee Masters: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing.

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