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

Anne Whitney Anne Whitney

Poet B

Lydia Huntley Sigourney Lydia Huntley Sigourney
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 64% Poems 84% Blended 73%
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…

“It has been a very satisfactory two months of study and gives me a feeling of confidence in the step I have taken in coming abroad.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony
Listen Timeline Affinities
Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

1 September 1791 – 10 June 1865 (~74)
2 live poems · English

Lydia Huntley Sigourney, born Lydia Howard Huntley on 1 September 1791 in Norwich, Connecticut, became one of the most widely read, industrious, and culturally influential American writers of the nineteenth century. During the height of her career, her poems were printed in newspapers and magazines, memorized by schoolchildren, recited at funerals, quoted from pulpits, and displayed in family albums. She wrote for re…

“If there is any kitchen in Parnassus, my Muse has surely officiated there as a woman of all work, and an aproned waiter.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Anne Whitney
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
1791 1915
They overlapped for 45 years (1821–1865). When Anne Whitney was born, Lydia Huntley Sigourney was about 30. Anne Whitney was about 44 when Lydia Huntley Sigourney died.
Anne Whitney in history Lydia Huntley Sigourney in history Years they were given

On the map

About 119 km separate Watertown, Massachusetts, USA from Norwich, Connecticut, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Anne Whitney

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

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.

Shared

life death suffering

Anne Whitney only

grave digger burial laughter mortality social dreaming awake dream pain divine flower

Lydia Huntley Sigourney only

infant smile face eyes power africa christian hope stars african winds waves

From the biographies

women

Anne Whitney: watertown, massachusetts, james monroe, civil war, abolition, women's rights, the lone parting, equinoxial, ethiopia. Lydia Huntley Sigourney: norwich, connecticut, sweet singer of hartford, moral pieces, traits of the aborigines of america, indian names, charles sigourney, daniel wadsworth.

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.

The Passion Flower
Anne Whitney
74% suffering
Compare
Christian Settlements in Africa
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
73%
Compare
Christian Settlements in Africa
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
72% life
Compare
Death of an Infant
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
The Grave-Digger
Anne Whitney
71% death, life
Compare
Death of an Infant
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
The Passion Flower
Anne Whitney
71%
Compare
Death of an Infant
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
The Grave-Digger
Anne Whitney
64%
Compare
Christian Settlements in Africa
Lydia Huntley Sigourney

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1823 Byron Joins the Greek War of Independence
1823 Publication of 'The Poems of Jeremiah Joseph Callanan'
1824 Lord Byron Arrives in Missolonghi to Lead the Greek Forces
1830 Indian Removal Act of 1830
1831 Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction in London
1831 HMS Beagle Begins Darwin's Survey Voyage
1831 Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction
1831 Publication of 'Canti'

Anne Whitney

1837 Education at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary
1850 Move to Boston
1854 Publication of 'Poems' Collection
1869 Involvement in the Women's Suffrage Movement
1880 Creation of the Statue of Samuel Adams
1885 Travel to Europe for Artistic Inspiration
1890 Publication of 'The Poems of Anne Whitney'
1915 Death of Anne Whitney

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

1806 Education and Early Literary Influences of Sigourney
1819 Marriage to Charles Sigourney
1820 Publication of First Book of Poems
1833 Publication of 'Letters to Young Ladies'
1835 Death of Her Daughter Elizabeth
1845 Publication of 'Poems for the Young'
1850 Recognition as a Prominent Poet
1860 Death of Charles Sigourney

Emotional landscapes

Anne Whitney: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony. Lydia Huntley Sigourney: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality.

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