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

Phoebe Cary Phoebe Cary
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 65% Poems 84% Blended 74%
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…

“Were we to rate every friend's - sister's or brother's - idiosyncracies at the height of the second dispensation or even of that of Moses & the prophets our skirts should be of asbestos to save us from the reflex of our judicial fires.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony
Listen Timeline Affinities
Phoebe Cary

Phoebe Cary

4 September 1824 – 31 July 1871 (~47)
3 live poems · English

In the grand tapestry of American literature, the threads of the famous are often woven with the brightest gold, their names—Whitman, Dickinson, Poe—echoing through the ages. But the strength and beauty of the cloth also depend on the countless subtle, sturdy threads that provide its foundation, its texture, and its often overlooked complexity. Phoebe Cary was one such thread. A poet of sharp wit, profound empathy, a…

“Alice, when she was here, always absorbed me, and she absorbed me still; I feel her constantly drawing me.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Anne Whitney
Phoebe Cary
1821 1915
They overlapped for 48 years (1824–1871). When Phoebe Cary was born, Anne Whitney was about 3. Anne Whitney was about 50 when Phoebe Cary died.
Anne Whitney in history Phoebe Cary in history Years they were given

On the map

About 1,176 km separate Watertown, Massachusetts, USA from Mount Healthy, Ohio, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Anne Whitney

Phoebe Cary

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 social

Anne Whitney only

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

Phoebe Cary only

woman marriage women unmarried heart friend friendship companionship tried saint bird northland

From the biographies

women's rights women social

Anne Whitney: watertown, massachusetts, james monroe, civil war, abolition, women's rights, the lone parting, equinoxial, ethiopia. Phoebe Cary: mount healthy, ohio wilderness, alice cary, rufus wilmot griswold, nearer home, one sweetly solemn thought, poems and parodies, a psalm of life.

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
73%
Compare
Tried and True
Phoebe Cary
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
70% life
Compare
A Psalm of Life
Phoebe Cary
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
69% life
Compare
Tried and True
Phoebe Cary
Half Awake
Anne Whitney
69%
Compare
A Legend of the Northland
Phoebe Cary
The Grave-Digger
Anne Whitney
69% death, life
Compare
Tried and True
Phoebe Cary
The Grave-Digger
Anne Whitney
68%
Compare
A Legend of the Northland
Phoebe Cary

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

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'
1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'

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

Phoebe Cary

1840 Cary Sisters' Literary Beginnings
1854 First Publication of Poetry
1854 Publication of 'Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary'
1856 Friendship with Edgar Allan Poe
1860 Contribution to Literary Magazines
1867 Involvement in Women's Rights Movement
1871 Death of Sister Alice Cary
1871 Final Publication Before Death

Emotional landscapes

Anne Whitney: Sorrow, Spirituality, Irony. Phoebe Cary: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness.

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