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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I want.

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.

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

Lord Byron Lord Byron

Poet B

Robert Burns Robert Burns
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 69% Poems 88% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
Lord Byron

Lord Byron

22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824 (~36)
28 live poems · English

George Gordon Byron, sixth Baron Byron, born 22 January 1788 and dead on 19 April 1824, was at once a dazzling poet, a public celebrity before the modern age had fully invented celebrity, an aristocrat uneasy in his rank, an exile, a political speaker, a lover of freedom, and a man whose private conduct generated lasting pain as well as endless fascination. Known to the world as Lord Byron, he became one of the centr…

“Poetry is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.”

Neighbourhood: Dramatic Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Love Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities
Robert Burns

Robert Burns

25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796 (~37)
33 live poems · English

Robert Burns was born on 25 January 1759 in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, in southwestern Scotland, and died in Dumfries on 21 July 1796. In the relatively brief span of thirty-seven years, he became Scotland’s best-loved poet, a major maker and remaker of song, an incisive satirist, and an emblem of democratic fellow feeling. His reputation has sometimes obscured the complicated human being beneath it. Burns was…

“The appellation of a Scottish poet, I am proud of.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Poet-Musicians, Political Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Longing, Joy
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Lord Byron
Robert Burns
1759 1824
They overlapped for 9 years (1788–1796). When Lord Byron was born, Robert Burns was about 29. Lord Byron was about 8 when Robert Burns died.
Lord Byron in history Robert Burns in history Years they were given

On the map

About 528 km separate London, England from Alloway, Ayrshire, Scotland. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

Lord Byron

Robert Burns

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

romantic life love death world nature beloved social beauty

Lord Byron only

self grief biblical power soul fate virtue

Robert Burns only

heart scottish rose woman desire field barley

From the biographies

social

Lord Byron: childe harold's pilgrimage, the giaour, the bride of abydos, the corsair, newstead abbey, mad jack byron, augusta leigh, mary chaworth. Robert Burns: alloway, dumfries, william burnes, jean armour, the twa dogs, to a mouse, the holy fair, kilmarnock edition.

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.

And Thou Art Dead
Lord Byron
84% love
Compare
Farewell, old Scotia's bleak domains
Robert Burns
And Thou Art Dead
Lord Byron
83% love, death
Compare
The Joyful Widower
Robert Burns
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
Lord Byron
81% love
Compare
Farewell, old Scotia's bleak domains
Robert Burns
When We Two Parted
Lord Byron
81% beloved
Compare
Had I a cave
Robert Burns
Oh! Snatched Away in Beauty's Bloom
Lord Byron
80% grief
Compare
Had I a cave
Robert Burns
On This Day I Complete My Thirty-Sixth Year
Lord Byron
79% love, death, life
Compare
The Joyful Widower
Robert Burns

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1788 Arrival of the First Fleet in Australia
1789 French Revolution Begins
1789 Storming of the Bastille
1789 The Bastille Stormed — Prison Fortress Falls
1791 Haitian Revolution Begins
1794 William Blake's prophetic books and heterodox theology
1796 Edward Jenner Discovers the Smallpox Vaccine
1804 Haiti Declares Independence

Lord Byron

1809 Byron Begins His Grand Tour of the Mediterranean and the Levant
1812 Publication of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Cantos I and II
1814 Byron Publishes The Corsair, His Bestselling Oriental Tale
1816 Byron and Lady Byron Separate
1816 Lord Byron Leaves England Forever
1819 Byron Publishes Mazeppa and the First Two Cantos of Don Juan
1823 Byron Joins the Greek War of Independence
1824 Lord Byron Arrives in Missolonghi to Lead the Greek Forces

Robert Burns

1774 First Love Affair with Nelly Kilpatrick
1786 Burns Moves to Edinburgh
1786 Burns' Relationship with Jean Armour
1786 Move to Edinburgh and Rise to Fame
1786 Publication of 'Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect'
1793 Publication of 'Songs of Robert Burns'
1796 Burns' Final Poems Published Posthumously
1796 Death of Robert Burns

Emotional landscapes

Lord Byron: Sorrow, Longing, Despair. Robert Burns: Tenderness, Longing, Joy.

Compare their emotional landscapes
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