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

Francis Davison Francis Davison

Poet B

Thomas Campion Thomas Campion
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 81% Blended 81%
Swap sides Another related pair
Francis Davison

Francis Davison

c. 1575 – c. 1619 (~44)
1 live poem · English

In the twilight of the Elizabethan era, when the English literary world shimmered with the brilliance of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Sidney, there moved a quieter, more introspective figure whose voice, though softer, carried the weight of genuine poetic sensibility — Francis Davison. Born in 1575, and passing into obscurity by 1619, Davison’s life spanned the final decades of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign and the early ye…

“The bee and spider, by a diverse power, Suck honey and poison from the selfsame flower.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities
Thomas Campion

Thomas Campion

12 February 1567 – 1 March 1620 (~53)
2 live poems · English

In the twilight of the Elizabethan era, when the English language was still finding its lyrical wings, when Shakespeare’s quill was etching immortality into parchment and the lute still whispered through candlelit chambers, there walked a man whose artistry shimmered with quiet brilliance — Thomas Campion. Born in 1567, dead by 1620, Campion lived a life that spanned the golden age of English poetry and music, yet hi…

“A poet is not born, but made.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Poet-Musicians, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Tenderness, Peace
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Francis Davison
Thomas Campion
1567 1620
They overlapped for 45 years (1575–1619). When Francis Davison was born, Thomas Campion was about 8. Thomas Campion was about 52 when Francis Davison died.
Francis Davison in history Thomas Campion in history Years they were given

On the map

About 2 km separate London, England from St. Andrew Holborn, London, England. Both have ground in London and England.

Francis Davison

Thomas Campion

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

love beloved

Francis Davison only

music marble stone constancy

Thomas Campion only

beauty cherries desire garden face life courtly pastoral labour country world court

From the biographies

Francis Davison: elizabethan era, william davison, a poetical rhapsody, ben jonson, michael drayton, westminster school, oxford, sonnet form. Thomas Campion: st. andrew holborn, merchant taylors' school, peterhouse, cambridge, gray's inn, the triumphs of oriana, rose-cheeked laura, come, a booke of ayres, observations in the art of english poesie.

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.

Sweet, if you like and love me still
Francis Davison
73% love, beloved
Compare
There Is a Garden in Her Face
Thomas Campion
Sweet, if you like and love me still
Francis Davison
66%
Compare
Jack and Joan
Thomas Campion

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1592 Imprisonment for Religious Activities
1595 Execution at Tyburn
1600 English East India Company Chartered
1600 William Gilbert publishes De Magnete and coins electricus
1603 Imprisonment in the Tower of London
1605 Cervantes Publishes Don Quixote Featuring the Windmill Combat Scene
1605 Publication of 'Don Quixote' Part I
1615 Cervantes publishes the second part of Don Quixote

Francis Davison

1587 Francis Davison's Education Begins
1587 Francis Davison's Father's Downfall
1602 Publication of 'Poetical Rhapsody'
1603 Marriage to Elizabeth
1608 Publication of 'A Poetical Rhapsody'
1610 Friendship with John Donne
1615 Death of His Father
1616 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of Francis Davison'

Thomas Campion

1578 Early Education at Merchant Taylors' School
1581 Enrollment at Peterhouse, Cambridge
1601 Publication of 'The Third Book of Airs'
1602 Publication of 'The Observations in the Art of English Poesy'
1610 Friendship with Ben Jonson
1617 Publication of 'The Fourth Book of Airs'
1618 Involvement in the Court of King James I
1620 Publication of 'The Last Book of Airs'

Emotional landscapes

Francis Davison: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. Thomas Campion: Joy, Tenderness, Peace.

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