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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I want.

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.

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

John Dowland John Dowland

Poet B

John Bartlet John Bartlet
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 80% Blended 80%
Swap sides Another related pair
John Dowland

John Dowland

c. 1563 – 20 February 1626 (~63)
1 live poem · English

In the twilight of the Renaissance, when the courts of Europe shimmered with velvet and candlelight, and the air hummed with lute strings and whispered sonnets, there walked a man whose music seemed spun from moonlight and sorrow. John Dowland—composer, lutenist, poet of the fretboard—was not merely a musician of his age; he was its emotional cartographer, mapping the contours of longing, loss, and unrequited love wi…

“Plato defines melody to consist of harmony, number and words: harmony naked of itself, words the ornament of harmony, number the common friend and uniter of them both.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities
John Bartlet

John Bartlet

c. 1585 – c. 1620 (~35)
2 live poems · English

In the twilight years of the Elizabethan era, as the golden age of English poetry shimmered into the Jacobean dawn, a quiet but gifted composer emerged whose voice—though faint in the historical record—resonates with a rare and haunting beauty. John Bartlet, active roughly between 1585 and 1620, remains one of the most enigmatic figures of early English secular music. His life is shrouded in mystery, his dates approx…

“It is a question hardly to be determined whether Music may esteem herself more graced by the singular skill and exquisite knowledge wherewith your Lordship is endued, or by the many benefits your bounty hath conferred on the professors of that faculty.”

Neighbourhood: Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

John Dowland
John Bartlet
1563 1626
They overlapped for 36 years (1585–1620). When John Bartlet was born, John Dowland was about 22. John Dowland was about 57 when John Bartlet died.
John Dowland in history John Bartlet in history Years they were given

On the map

About 1 km separate Westminster, London, England from London, England. Both have ground in London.

John Dowland

John Bartlet

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.

John Dowland only

tears despair world flow sorrow melancholy hope spiritual lament

John Bartlet only

beloved lover pursuit music love betrayal expectation

From the biographies

lute music songs composer

John Dowland: london, paris, christian iv of denmark, first booke of songes or ayres, flow, my tears, lachrimae, a pilgrimes solace, roman catholicism. John Bartlet: elizabethan era, jacobean dawn, a booke of ayres, thomas morley, john dowland, thomas campion, lute song, lyric poetry.

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.

Flow, my tears
John Dowland
73%
Compare
When from my love I looked for love
John Bartlet
Flow, my tears
John Dowland
67%
Compare
Whither runeth my sweethart
John Bartlet

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1592 Imprisonment for Religious Activities
1595 Execution at Tyburn
1600 English East India Company Chartered
1600 William Gilbert publishes De Magnete and coins electricus
1603 Imprisonment in the Tower of London
1605 Cervantes Publishes Don Quixote Featuring the Windmill Combat Scene
1605 Publication of 'Don Quixote' Part I
1615 Cervantes publishes the second part of Don Quixote

John Dowland

1594 Marriage to Anne Dowland
1597 Publication of 'First Booke of Songs or Ayres'
1598 Travel to France and Italy
1600 Friendship with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex
1600 Publication of 'The Second Booke of Songs or Ayres'
1606 Appointment as Lutenist to the English Court
1606 Publication of 'A Pilgrimes Solace'
1620 Publication of 'The Third and Last Booke of Songs or Ayres'

John Bartlet

1600 Possible Training in Choral Tradition
1606 Publication of A Booke of Ayres
1610 Active in London’s Musical Scene
1610 Cultural Context of Early 17th Century England
1610 Influence of the Elizabethan Musical Tradition
1615 Collaboration with Contemporary Poets
1615 Participation in Musical Gatherings
1620 Legacy of Emotional Depth in Music

Emotional landscapes

John Dowland: Despair, Sorrow, Longing. John Bartlet: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.

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