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.

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

King James Bible King James Bible

Poet B

William Whiting William Whiting
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 57% Poems 82% Blended 68%
Swap sides Another related pair
King James Bible

King James Bible

1611 – present
7 live poems · English

The King James Bible, more accurately called the King James Version or Authorized Version, does not have a birth and death date in the ordinary biographical sense, because it is neither a person nor the work of a solitary author. Yet it has a remarkably vivid life story. “Born” in print in 1611, during the reign of James VI and I (born June 19, 1566; died March 27, 1625), it emerged from religious conflict, royal cal…

“Translation it is that openeth the window, to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder
William Whiting

William Whiting

1 November 1825 – 3 May 1878 (~53)
2 live poems · English

William Whiting was born on 1 November 1825 in Kensington, then a rapidly changing western district of London, and died in Winchester on 3 May 1878. He is remembered above all as the author of “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” the hymn later known throughout much of the English-speaking world as the Navy Hymn. That single work has achieved a cultural reach far beyond the scale of its author’s surviving literary reput…

“Before you depart, I will give you something to anchor your faith.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Tenderness

In time

King James Bible
William Whiting
1611 2026
They overlapped for 54 years (1825–1878). When William Whiting was born, King James Bible was about 214.

On the map

About 5 km separate Hampton Court, London, England from London, England. Both have ground in London.

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

religious

King James Bible: king james version, authorized version, hampton court conference, william tyndale, john wycliffe, lancelot andrewes, miles smith, george abbot. William Whiting: kensington, winchester, eternal father, strong to save, navy hymn, victorian schoolmaster, winchester college, choristers’ school, hymns ancient and modern.

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.

Psalm 23
King James Bible
78% divine
Compare
Jesus Christ our Savior
William Whiting
Psalm 34
King James Bible
77% divine, praise
Compare
Jesus Christ our Savior
William Whiting
Psalm 1
King James Bible
73% divine, spiritual
Compare
Jesus Christ our Savior
William Whiting
Psalm 34
King James Bible
72% divine
Compare
Eternal Father, strong to save
William Whiting
1 Corinthians 13
King James Bible
71% spiritual
Compare
Jesus Christ our Savior
William Whiting
Psalm 23
King James Bible
70% divine
Compare
Eternal Father, strong to save
William Whiting

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

King James Bible: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder. William Whiting: Spirituality, Peace, Tenderness.

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