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

Edgar Lee Masters Edgar Lee Masters

Poet B

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson
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 68% Poems 90% Blended 78%
Swap sides Another related pair
Edgar Lee Masters

Edgar Lee Masters

23 August 1868 – 5 March 1950 (~82)
25 live poems · English

In the pantheon of American literature, few poets have captured the essence of small-town life with such unflinching honesty and profound empathy as Edgar Lee Masters. Born in the twilight of the nineteenth century and dying in the shadow of World War II, Masters lived through one of the most transformative periods in American history. His masterwork, Spoon River Anthology, revolutionized American poetry by giving vo…

“Human nature undoubtedly improves and may always be capable of improvement. But human nature in its essential passions remains constituent and integral.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Death & Mortality, Dramatic Poets, Modernist Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

25 May 1803 – 27 April 1882 (~79)
47 live poems · English

Ralph Waldo Emerson, born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 25 May 1803 and dead in Concord, Massachusetts, on 27 April 1882, became one of the defining voices of nineteenth-century American literature. He was at once a poet, essayist, lecturer, editor, religious dissenter, and public moralist, though no single title entirely contains him. His greatest influence lay in his ability to make philosophical inquiry sound urgen…

“Nature is loved by what is best in us.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets, Transcendentalists
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Spirituality, Peace

In time

Edgar Lee Masters
Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803 1950
They overlapped for 15 years (1868–1882). When Edgar Lee Masters was born, Ralph Waldo Emerson was about 65. Edgar Lee Masters was about 14 when Ralph Waldo Emerson died.

On the map

About 2,092 km separate Garnett, Kansas, USA from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Shared ground: United States.

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

Edgar Lee Masters only

Ralph Waldo Emerson only

From the biographies

social

Edgar Lee Masters: garnett, kansas, lewiston, illinois, spoon river anthology, william marion reedy, chicago renaissance, the blood of the prophets, a book of verses, helen m. jenkins. Ralph Waldo Emerson: boston, concord, nature, transcendentalism, william emerson, mary moody emerson, ellen louisa tucker, lydia jackson.

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.

Wild Birds
Edgar Lee Masters
81% nature, world
Compare
Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fletcher McGee
Edgar Lee Masters
81% soul
Compare
Manners
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wild Birds
Edgar Lee Masters
81% wild, nature, world
Compare
My Garden
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jacob Braham
Edgar Lee Masters
80% world
Compare
Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Isaiah Beethoven
Edgar Lee Masters
80% river, spiritual, water
Compare
Two Rivers
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Jonathan Swift Somers
Edgar Lee Masters
79%
Compare
Fate
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Edgar Lee Masters: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing. Ralph Waldo Emerson: Wonder, Spirituality, Peace.

Compare their emotional landscapes
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