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

Gerald Massey Gerald Massey

Poet B

Marriott Edgar Marriott Edgar
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 61% Blended 61%
Swap sides Another related pair
Gerald Massey

Gerald Massey

29 May 1828 – 29 October 1907 (~79)
3 live poems · English

Gerald Massey, born on 29 May 1828 in Tring, Hertfordshire, and dead on 29 October 1907 in South Norwood, London, lived one of the most striking self-made literary lives of the Victorian age. He was a poet, lecturer, editor, radical reformer, Shakespearean commentator, spiritual seeker, and amateur investigator of comparative religion. In each of these roles he carried the imprint of his beginnings: he had known chil…

“Above all, Poverty is a cold place to write Poetry in. It is not attractive to poetical influences. The Muses do not like entertainment which is not fit for man or beast.”

Neighbourhood: Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Anger, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities
Marriott Edgar

Marriott Edgar

5 October 1880 – 5 May 1951 (~71)
1 live poem · English

On a crisp October morning in 1880, in the Scottish town of Kirkcudbright, a child was born who would grow up to capture the essence of Northern English working-class humor in verse. George Marriott Edgar entered the world on October 5th into a family already steeped in theatrical tradition, though no one could have predicted that this quiet, droll man of medium height would become one of Britain's most beloved comic…

Neighbourhood: Children's Verse, Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Joy, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Gerald Massey
Marriott Edgar
1828 1951
They overlapped for 28 years (1880–1907). When Marriott Edgar was born, Gerald Massey was about 52. Marriott Edgar was about 27 when Gerald Massey died.
Gerald Massey in history Marriott Edgar in history Years they were given

On the map

About 406 km separate Tring, Hertfordshire, England from Kirkcudbright, Scotland. Both have ground in England and London.

Gerald Massey

Marriott Edgar

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.

Gerald Massey only

life radical hope freedom land money social power tree dirge grief nature

Marriott Edgar only

noah domestic divine culture

From the biographies

class

Gerald Massey: tring, south norwood, william massey, rosina jane cross, babe christabel, poems and chansons, voices of freedom, lyrics of love. Marriott Edgar: kirkcudbright, young albert ramsbottom, the lion and albert, the co-optimists, stanley holloway, pantomime dame, great war, royal sussex regiment.

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.

Dirge
Gerald Massey
61%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar
Song of the Red Republican
Gerald Massey
61%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar
The Lords of Land and Money
Gerald Massey
59%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1882 Nietzsche Declares 'God is Dead'
1882 Robert Koch Discovers the Tuberculosis Bacillus
1883 Emil Christian Hansen Isolates a Pure Yeast Culture at Carlsberg
1883 Friedrich Nietzsche Publishes 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
1883 Publication of 'Treasure Island'
1884 Oxford English Dictionary Begins Publication
1884 Publication of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'
1885 Pasteur Successfully Tests the Rabies Vaccine

Gerald Massey

1836 Early Education and Self-Teaching of Gerald Massey
1850 First Published Poem
1854 Publication of 'The Ballad of Babe Christabel'
1864 Publication of 'The Spirit of the Age'
1866 Involvement in the Chartist Movement
1880 Publication of 'The Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World'
1885 Death of Gerald Massey's Wife
1888 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of Gerald Massey'

Marriott Edgar

1886 Marriott Edgar's Early Education
1890 Family Relocation to Manchester
1910 Marriage to Mary Ellen
1914 Service in World War I
1930 Major Publication: 'The Lion and Albert'
1934 Radio Debut
1947 Final Major Publication: 'The Best of Marriott Edgar'
1951 Death of Marriott Edgar

Emotional landscapes

Gerald Massey: Longing, Anger, Despair. Marriott Edgar: Irony, Joy, Tenderness.

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