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

Nathaniel Parker Willis Nathaniel Parker Willis

Poet B

Bayard Taylor Bayard Taylor
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 73% Blended 73%
Swap sides Another related pair
Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis

20 January 1806 – 20 January 1867 (~61)
1 live poem · English

In the grand tapestry of 19th-century American literature, certain figures shine with the steady brilliance of established stars, while others flicker with a more complex, mercurial light. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867) belongs decidedly to the latter category—a writer whose life and work embodied the tensions, aspirations, and contradictions of a young nation struggling to define its cultural identity. Neither…

“My veins are teeming with the quicksilver spirit which my mother gave me. Whatever I accomplish must be gained by ardor, and not by patience.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Romantic Poets, Transcendentalists, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Irony
Listen Timeline Affinities
Bayard Taylor

Bayard Taylor

11 January 1825 – 19 December 1878 (~53)
2 live poems · English

James Bayard Taylor was born on 11 January 1825 in Kennett Township, near Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and died on 19 December 1878 in Berlin, Germany. During his lifetime he was among the most visible American men of letters: a poet, novelist, journalist, lecturer, travel writer, editor, translator, and, briefly, a diplomat. His fame was immense by the standards of his day. Audiences crowded his l…

“I came to Berlin not to visit its museums and galleries, its operas, its theaters, but for the sake of seeing and speaking with the world's greatest living man - Alexander von Humboldt.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Nathaniel Parker Willis
Bayard Taylor
1806 1878
They overlapped for 43 years (1825–1867). When Bayard Taylor was born, Nathaniel Parker Willis was about 19. Bayard Taylor was about 42 when Nathaniel Parker Willis died.
Nathaniel Parker Willis in history Bayard Taylor in history Years they were given

On the map

About 620 km separate Portland, Maine, United States from Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Nathaniel Parker Willis

Bayard Taylor

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.

Nathaniel Parker Willis only

woman social honor women world beauty unseen spirits

Bayard Taylor only

music sorrow grief romantic sorrowful pain storm courage ship tempest spirit freedom

From the biographies

culture

Nathaniel Parker Willis: portland, maine, fanny fern, sketches, unseen spirits, yale literary magazine, european correspondent, new york mirror, inklings of adventure. Bayard Taylor: kennett township, chester county, ximena; or, the battle of the sierra morena, views a-foot, eldorado; or, adventures in the path of empire, the story of kennett, the bedouin song, quaker farming family.

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.

Unseen Spirits
Nathaniel Parker Willis
69%
Compare
Sorrowful Music
Bayard Taylor
Unseen Spirits
Nathaniel Parker Willis
65%
Compare
Storm Song
Bayard Taylor

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1830 Indian Removal Act of 1830
1831 Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction in London
1831 HMS Beagle Begins Darwin's Survey Voyage
1831 Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction
1831 Publication of 'Canti'
1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'
1836 Publication of 'Nature'

Nathaniel Parker Willis

1823 Education at Yale College
1828 First Major Publication: 'The Literary World'
1837 Marriage to Sarah E. H. Willis
1838 Publication of 'Pencilings'
1845 Relocation to Europe
1856 Death of His Wife, Sarah
1859 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of Nathaniel Parker Willis'
1867 Final Years and Legacy

Bayard Taylor

1842 Apprenticeship in West Chester
1844 First European Trip
1844 Publication of 'Ximena'
1846 Publication of 'Views Afoot'
1862 Travel to the Middle East
1864 Publication of 'The Poet's Journal'
1876 Publication of 'The National Poems'
1878 Appointment as U.S. Minister to Germany

Emotional landscapes

Nathaniel Parker Willis: Despair, Sorrow, Irony. Bayard Taylor: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality.

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