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.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this 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

Anne Whitney Anne Whitney

Poet B

Herman Melville Herman Melville
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 51% Poems 82% Blended 65%
Swap sides Another related pair
Anne Whitney

Anne Whitney

2 September 1821 – 23 January 1915 (~94)
3 live poems · English

In the pantheon of 19th-century American artists, few figures embody the spirit of creative rebellion and social conscience as powerfully as Anne Whitney. Born into an era when women were expected to confine their artistic pursuits to watercolors and embroidery, Whitney defied convention to become one of America's most accomplished sculptors and a significant voice in poetry. Her ninety-four years spanned a transform…

“Were we to rate every friend's - sister's or brother's - idiosyncracies at the height of the second dispensation or even of that of Moses & the prophets our skirts should be of asbestos to save us from the reflex of our judicial fires.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony
Herman Melville

Herman Melville

1 August 1819 – 28 September 1891 (~72)
3 live poems · English

Herman Melville stands as one of American literature's most enigmatic and profound figures, a writer whose genius went largely unrecognized during his lifetime but whose works have come to define the very essence of American literary ambition. Born on August 1, 1819, in New York City, and dying in relative obscurity on September 28, 1891, Melville's seventy-two years encompassed a life of remarkable adventure, creati…

“We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibres connect us with our fellow men; and along those fibres, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and return to us as effects.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Death & Mortality, LGBTQ+ Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Fear, Spirituality

In time

Anne Whitney
Herman Melville
1819 1915
They overlapped for 71 years (1821–1891). When Anne Whitney was born, Herman Melville was about 2. Anne Whitney was about 70 when Herman Melville died.

On the map

About 298 km separate Watertown, Massachusetts, USA from New York City, New York, USA. Both have ground in Massachusetts.

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

Anne Whitney: watertown, massachusetts, james monroe, civil war, abolition, women's rights, the lone parting, equinoxial, ethiopia. Herman Melville: new york city, typee, moby-dick, nathaniel hawthorne, whaling, bartleby, fairhaven, acushnet.

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.

Half Awake
Anne Whitney
70%
Compare
Field Asters
Herman Melville
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
70% life
Compare
Give Me the Nerve
Herman Melville
The Passion Flower
Anne Whitney
67% divine
Compare
Jonah's Song
Herman Melville
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
67%
Compare
Jonah's Song
Herman Melville
The Passion Flower
Anne Whitney
67%
Compare
Field Asters
Herman Melville
The Passion Flower
Anne Whitney
66%
Compare
Give Me the Nerve
Herman Melville

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Anne Whitney: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony. Herman Melville: Wonder, Fear, Spirituality.

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