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

J. C. Squire J. C. Squire

Poet B

John Masefield John Masefield
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 76% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
J. C. Squire

J. C. Squire

2 April 1884 – 20 December 1958 (~74)
1 live poem · English

In the smoky literary salons of early twentieth-century London, few figures loomed larger than John Collings Squire, a man whose influence extended far beyond his own considerable poetic output to shape an entire generation of English letters. Born on April 2, 1884, in Plymouth, Devon, Squire would become one of the most powerful literary editors of his age, a respected poet in his own right, and a lightning rod for…

“The better production of our generation has been mainly lyrical and it has been widely diffused.”

Neighbourhood: Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Sorrow, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities
John Masefield

John Masefield

1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967 (~89)
8 live poems · English

John Edward Masefield was born on 1 June 1878 in Ledbury, Herefordshire, a market town on the borderlands of England and Wales, and died on 12 May 1967 at Abingdon, then in Berkshire. During his long life he became one of Britain’s most recognizable poets: a writer of sailors, fields, foxhunts, village sinners, mythic heroes, children’s dreams, national ceremonies, and private grief. He was also a novelist, playwrigh…

“The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.”

Neighbourhood: Dramatic Poets, Edwardian Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

J. C. Squire
John Masefield
1878 1967
They overlapped for 75 years (1884–1958). When J. C. Squire was born, John Masefield was about 6. John Masefield was about 80 when J. C. Squire died.
J. C. Squire in history John Masefield in history Years they were given

On the map

About 209 km separate Plymouth, Devon, England from Ledbury, Herefordshire, England. Both have ground in England.

J. C. Squire

John Masefield

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.

No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.

J. C. Squire only

hills squire earth nature landscape mythic

John Masefield only

life world death wind dead ships home star memory weather tide fever

From the biographies

J. C. Squire: plymouth, blundell's school, st. john's college, the new statesman, solomon eagle, the three hills and other poems, poems and baudelaire flowers, to a bull-dog. John Masefield: ledbury, herefordshire, hms conway, salt-water ballads, sea fever, the everlasting mercy, constance de la cherois crommelin, the tragedy of pompey the great.

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 Three Hills
J. C. Squire
74%
Compare
Twilight
John Masefield
The Three Hills
J. C. Squire
71%
Compare
When Bony Death
John Masefield
The Three Hills
J. C. Squire
71% nature
Compare
The West Wind
John Masefield
The Three Hills
J. C. Squire
68%
Compare
Prayer
John Masefield
The Three Hills
J. C. Squire
67%
Compare
Sea-Fever
John Masefield
The Three Hills
J. C. Squire
65%
Compare
Bill
John Masefield

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1884 Oxford English Dictionary Begins Publication
1884 Publication of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'
1885 Pasteur Successfully Tests the Rabies Vaccine
1885 Premiere of 'The Mikado'
1886 Coca-Cola invented by John Pemberton in Atlanta
1886 Discovery of Gold on the Witwatersrand Sparks Johannesburg Boom
1886 Emily Dickinson's Posthumous Discovery by Sister Lavinia
1891 Conversion to Roman Catholicism

J. C. Squire

1895 Education at Blundell's School
1902 Matriculation at St. John's College, Cambridge
1917 First Major Publication: 'The New Poetry'
1919 Founding of 'The London Mercury'
1919 Marriage to Margaret Squire
1932 Publication of 'Collected Poems'
1935 Friendship with W. H. Auden
1952 Publication of 'The Last Poems'

John Masefield

1891 Seafaring Career Begins
1902 First Published Work: 'Salt-Water Ballads'
1903 Marriage to Constance Masefield
1911 Breakthrough with 'The Everlasting Mercy'
1913 Publication of 'Dauber'
1930 Appointment as Poet Laureate
1961 Death of Constance Masefield
1967 Final Publication: 'The Complete Poems'

Emotional landscapes

J. C. Squire: Spirituality, Sorrow, Wonder. John Masefield: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder.

Skip to main content