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 Donne John Donne

Poet B

John Bunyan John Bunyan
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 63% Blended 63%
Swap sides Another related pair
John Donne

John Donne

1572 – 31 March 1631 (~59)
40 live poems · English

John Donne was born in London in 1572, probably in January, though the exact day remains uncertain, and he died in London on 31 March 1631. Few English writers have seemed so divided within themselves, or have turned division into such memorable art. He was at once a Catholic child in a Protestant state, an ambitious courtier whose prospects were ruined by love, a husband burdened by debt and bereavement, a poet of e…

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities
John Bunyan

John Bunyan

November 1628 – 31 August 1688 (~60)
1 live poem · English

John Bunyan, baptized on 30 November 1628 and dead on 31 August 1688, rose from the working life of rural Bedfordshire to become one of the most influential English religious writers of all time. Though he is best known as the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, a book whose characters and phrases entered the language of generations of readers, Bunyan was also a preacher, controversialist, autobiographer, pastor, poet,…

“Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Renaissance Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Joy
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

John Donne
John Bunyan
1572 1688
They overlapped for 4 years (1628–1631). When John Bunyan was born, John Donne was about 56. John Bunyan was about 3 when John Donne died.
John Donne in history John Bunyan in history Years they were given

On the map

About 70 km separate London, England from Elstow, Bedfordshire, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

John Donne

John Bunyan

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.

Shared

self life power spiritual divine

John Donne only

love beloved death heart world desire lovers woman social nature religious

John Bunyan only

bunyan humility pilgrimage

From the biographies

religious church

John Donne: london, catholic, anglican preacher, songs and sonnets, the flea, the sun rising, the canonization, a valediction: forbidding mourning. John Bunyan: bedfordshire, elstow, the pilgrim’s progress, grace abounding to the chief of sinners, english civil war, john gifford, tinker, baptism by immersion.

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.

A Hymn to God the Father
John Donne
79% divine, life
Compare
He that is down needs fear no fall
John Bunyan
Batter my heart, three-person'd God
John Donne
74% self, divine, spiritual
Compare
He that is down needs fear no fall
John Bunyan
The Triple Foole
John Donne
74%
Compare
He that is down needs fear no fall
John Bunyan
No Man Is an Island
John Donne
73%
Compare
He that is down needs fear no fall
John Bunyan
The Undertaking
John Donne
72%
Compare
He that is down needs fear no fall
John Bunyan
Negative love
John Donne
72% life, divine
Compare
He that is down needs fear no fall
John Bunyan

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1628 Death by Violence
1628 Education at St Andrews University
1628 William Harvey Publishes 'De Motu Cordis'
1629 Appointment as Vicar of Dean Prior
1629 The Italian Plague of 1629
1630 Appointment as Gentleman of the Privy Chamber
1630 Publication of 'Poems'
1630 Publication of 'The Broken Heart'

John Donne

1593 Brother Henry's Imprisonment and Death
1610 Publication of 'Pseudo-Martyr'
1611 Writing the Anniversaries for Elizabeth Drury
1615 Ordination as Anglican Priest
1617 Death of Wife Anne More
1621 Appointment as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral
1623 Severe Illness and 'Devotions upon Emergent Occasions'
1631 Composition of 'Death's Duel'

John Bunyan

1635 John Bunyan's Education at Local Grammar School
1644 John Bunyan's Military Service
1649 John Bunyan's Marriage to Mary
1660 John Bunyan's First Imprisonment
1666 John Bunyan's Publication of Grace Abounding
1672 John Bunyan's Release from Prison
1685 John Bunyan's Final Years in Bedford
1688 John Bunyan's Death

Emotional landscapes

John Donne: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. John Bunyan: Spirituality, Peace, Joy.

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