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

Anthony Munday Anthony Munday

Poet B

John Dryden John Dryden
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 71% Poems 84% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
Anthony Munday

Anthony Munday

c. 13 October 1560 – 10 August 1633 (~73)
2 live poems · English

In the bustling, smoke-hung streets of Elizabethan London, where the clatter of hooves mingled with the cries of hawkers and the distant peal of church bells, a young man of quick wit and tireless pen emerged from the shadows of obscurity to become one of the most versatile, if underappreciated, literary figures of his age. Anthony Munday—born circa 1560, died in 1633—was not merely a poet or playwright, but a litera…

“I rest, right honourable, on your clemency to amend my errors committed so unskilfully.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Anger
Listen Timeline Affinities
John Dryden

John Dryden

9 August 1631 – 12 May 1700 (~69)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of English literature, few figures loom as large or cast as long a shadow as John Dryden. Born on August 9, 1631, in the village of Aldwincle All Saints in Northamptonshire, England, and dying on May 12, 1700, in London, Dryden lived through one of the most turbulent periods in British history. His lifetime spanned the English Civil War, the execution of Charles I, the Interregnum under Oliver Cromwel…

“The end of poetry is to instruct, and the end of instruction is to please.”

Neighbourhood: Augustan Poets, Dramatic Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Anthony Munday
John Dryden
1560 1700
They overlapped for 3 years (1631–1633). When John Dryden was born, Anthony Munday was about 71. John Dryden was about 2 when Anthony Munday died.
Anthony Munday in history John Dryden in history Years they were given

On the map

About 100 km separate City of London, England from Aldwincle All Saints, Northamptonshire, England. Both have ground in London.

Anthony Munday

John Dryden

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

beauty love

Anthony Munday only

desire imagination dream memory deceit stole

John Dryden only

beloved power pity restoration urgency flame suffering hidden pain silence heart

From the biographies

london plays

Anthony Munday: elizabethan london, sir francis walsingham, the english romayne lyfe, john a kent and john a cumber, metropolis coronata, the triumphs of reunited britannia, the downfall and the death of robert earl of huntington, robin hood. John Dryden: aldwincle all saints, northamptonshire, heroique stanzas, astraea redux, the wild gallant, the indian queen, the indian emperour, marriage a-la-mode.

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.

Beauty sat bathing by a spring
Anthony Munday
79% beauty
Compare
Fair, sweet, and young
John Dryden
Beauty sat bathing by a spring
Anthony Munday
75%
Compare
Hidden Flame
John Dryden
You stole my love
Anthony Munday
75% love
Compare
Fair, sweet, and young
John Dryden
You stole my love
Anthony Munday
69% love
Compare
Hidden Flame
John Dryden

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1631 Imprisonment for Political Views
1631 Taj Mahal Construction Begins in Agra
1632 Galileo publishes Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
1632 Publication of 'Christ's Victory and Triumph'
1633 George Herbert publishes The Temple
1633 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of William Strode'
1633 Publication of 'The Purple Island'
1653 The Taj Mahal complex is substantially completed

Anthony Munday

1567 Apprenticeship to John Allde
1586 Publication of 'The Mirror of Mutability'
1590 Involvement in Civic Pageantry
1600 Publication of 'The First Part of the History of Sir John Oldcastle'
1600 Publication of 'The History of Sir John Oldcastle'
1600 Publication of 'The Second Part of the History of Sir John Oldcastle'
1601 Publication of 'The Death of Robert, Earl of Huntingdon'
1603 Involvement in the Publication of 'The Book of Sir Thomas More'

John Dryden

1644 Education at Westminster School
1654 Graduation from Trinity College, Cambridge
1659 Publication of 'Heroique Stanzas'
1668 Appointed Poet Laureate
1678 Publication of 'All for Love'
1685 Conversion to Catholicism
1687 Publication of 'The Hind and the Panther'
1700 Death of John Dryden

Emotional landscapes

Anthony Munday: Longing, Sorrow, Anger. John Dryden: Longing, Tenderness, Sensuality.

Skip to main content