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

William Byrd William Byrd

Poet B

Nicholas Grimald Nicholas Grimald
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
William Byrd

William Byrd

c. 1540 – 4 July 1623 (~83)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of English Renaissance composers, William Byrd stands as a towering figure whose musical genius transcended the turbulent religious and political landscape of his era. Born around 1540 and living until 1623, Byrd's extraordinary eighty-three-year lifespan encompassed the reigns of four monarchs and witnessed the profound transformation of English musical culture from medieval traditions to the floweri…

“The natural inclination and love to the art of music, wherein I have spent the better part of mine age, have been so powerful in me, that even in my old years which are desirous of rest, I cannot contain myself from taking some pains therein.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Nicholas Grimald

Nicholas Grimald

c. 1519 – c. May 1562 (~43)
1 live poem · English

In the vibrant yet perilous world of mid-16th-century England, where the fires of religious reform clashed with the iron will of monarchs and the ink of poets forged new paths for the English tongue, Nicholas Grimald stands as a compelling figure—a scholar, dramatist, translator, and poet whose life embodied the intellectual ferment and personal trials of the Tudor age. Born around 1519 or 1520 in the quiet rural exp…

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Joy, Longing

In time

William Byrd
Nicholas Grimald
1519 1623
They overlapped for 23 years (1540–1562). When William Byrd was born, Nicholas Grimald was about 21. William Byrd was about 22 when Nicholas Grimald died.

On the map

About 97 km separate London, England from Leighton Bromswold, Huntingdonshire, England. Both have ground in England.

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

William Byrd only

Nicholas Grimald only

From the biographies

William Byrd: english renaissance, thomas tallis, lincoln cathedral, queen elizabeth i, catholicism, recusancy, when younglings first, is love a boy?. Nicholas Grimald: huntingdonshire, leighton bromswold, gilbert smith, christ's college cambridge, brasnose college oxford, christus redivivus, archipropheta, bishop nicholas ridley.

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.

Is Love a boy?
William Byrd
78% love
Compare
A True Love
Nicholas Grimald
Come woeful Orpheus
William Byrd
69%
Compare
A True Love
Nicholas Grimald

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

William Byrd: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. Nicholas Grimald: Tenderness, Joy, Longing.

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