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

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

Poet B

Sir Lewis Morris Sir Lewis Morris
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 73% Poems 88% Blended 80%
Swap sides Another related pair
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

8 November 1831 – 24 November 1891 (~60)
4 live poems · English

The Victorian era produced many remarkable figures who straddled the worlds of literature and public service, but few navigated this dual existence with quite the complexity of Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831-1891), better known to the literary world by his pen name Owen Meredith. Born into literary aristocracy and destined for diplomatic greatness, Lytton embodied the tensions and contradiction…

“The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself.”

Neighbourhood: Decadent Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing
Sir Lewis Morris

Sir Lewis Morris

23 January 1833 – 12 November 1907 (~74)
6 live poems · English

In the landscape of Victorian poetry, few figures embodied the tensions between tradition and modernity, between Welsh heritage and English literary ambition, quite like Sir Lewis Morris. Born on a cold January morning in 1833 in Carmarthen, Wales, and dying in the twilight of the Edwardian era in 1907, Morris lived through one of the most transformative periods in British history. His life and work provide a fascina…

“The truth is, that while much is gained by care and polish in these respects, there is nothing more fatal to art than an over-elaboration which distracts attention from the real scope of the poem as a whole.”

Neighbourhood: Edwardian Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets, Welsh Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair

In time

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
Sir Lewis Morris
1831 1907
They overlapped for 59 years (1833–1891). When Sir Lewis Morris was born, Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton was about 2. Sir Lewis Morris was about 58 when Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton died.

On the map

About 291 km separate London, England from Carmarthen, Wales. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

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

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton: owen meredith, viceroy of india, clytemnestra, the wanderer, lucile, benjamin disraeli, delhi durbar, second afghan war. Sir Lewis Morris: carmarthen, victorian poetry, anglo-welsh school, songs of two worlds, the epic of hades, alfred tennyson, florence julia pollard, jesus college oxford.

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.

Consolation
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
81%
Compare
Alone
Sir Lewis Morris
Consolation
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
80%
Compare
Faith
Sir Lewis Morris
Consolation
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
77%
Compare
Love's Suicide
Sir Lewis Morris
Consolation
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
76%
Compare
Oh, Earth!
Sir Lewis Morris
Consolation
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
76%
Compare
Victory
Sir Lewis Morris
The Vampire
Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton
73% beauty, beloved
Compare
Love's Suicide
Sir Lewis Morris

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton: Wonder, Spirituality, Longing. Sir Lewis Morris: Longing, Sorrow, Despair.

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