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

John Masefield John Masefield

Poet B

Philip Bourke Marston Philip Bourke Marston
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 74% Poems 90% Blended 81%
Swap sides Another related pair
John Masefield

John Masefield

1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967 (~89)
8 live poems · English

John Edward Masefield was born on 1 June 1878 in Ledbury, Herefordshire, a market town on the borderlands of England and Wales, and died on 12 May 1967 at Abingdon, then in Berkshire. During his long life he became one of Britain’s most recognizable poets: a writer of sailors, fields, foxhunts, village sinners, mythic heroes, children’s dreams, national ceremonies, and private grief. He was also a novelist, playwrigh…

“The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.”

Neighbourhood: Dramatic Poets, Edwardian Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities
Philip Bourke Marston

Philip Bourke Marston

13 August 1850 – 13 February 1887 (~37)
22 live poems · English

Philip Bourke Marston was born in London on 13 August 1850 and died there on 13 February 1887, only thirty-six years later. His short life was shaped by an unusually concentrated mixture of literary privilege, physical disability, bereavement, emotional intensity, and artistic determination. During his lifetime he was admired by prominent writers, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, and was known in literary circle…

“If I only could sleep!”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

John Masefield
Philip Bourke Marston
1850 1967
They overlapped for 10 years (1878–1887). When John Masefield was born, Philip Bourke Marston was about 28. John Masefield was about 9 when Philip Bourke Marston died.
John Masefield in history Philip Bourke Marston in history Years they were given

On the map

About 169 km separate Ledbury, Herefordshire, England from London, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

John Masefield

Philip Bourke Marston

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 world death memory

John Masefield only

wind dead ships home star weather tide fever maritime ship burial prayer

Philip Bourke Marston only

love beloved grief loss beauty suffering pain lover sorrow spring queen woman

From the biographies

John Masefield: ledbury, herefordshire, hms conway, salt-water ballads, sea fever, the everlasting mercy, constance de la cherois crommelin, the tragedy of pompey the great. Philip Bourke Marston: london, john westland marston, algernon charles swinburne, song-tide and other poems, all in all, blindness, victorian poetry, pre-raphaelite.

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.

When Bony Death
John Masefield
85% death, beloved, love
Compare
A Year Ago
Philip Bourke Marston
When Bony Death
John Masefield
85% death, beloved, love
Compare
Not Thou But I
Philip Bourke Marston
When Bony Death
John Masefield
84% beloved, love
Compare
Sad Songs Remembered
Philip Bourke Marston
When Bony Death
John Masefield
83% beloved, beauty
Compare
To a Tune
Philip Bourke Marston
When Bony Death
John Masefield
83% beloved
Compare
Bereft
Philip Bourke Marston
When Bony Death
John Masefield
82% death, love
Compare
My Love is Dead
Philip Bourke Marston

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1879 Edison Demonstrates the Carbon-Filament Incandescent Lamp
1882 Nietzsche Declares 'God is Dead'
1882 Robert Koch Discovers the Tuberculosis Bacillus
1883 Emil Christian Hansen Isolates a Pure Yeast Culture at Carlsberg
1883 Friedrich Nietzsche Publishes 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
1883 Publication of 'Treasure Island'
1884 Oxford English Dictionary Begins Publication
1884 Publication of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'

John Masefield

1891 Seafaring Career Begins
1902 First Published Work: 'Salt-Water Ballads'
1903 Marriage to Constance Masefield
1911 Breakthrough with 'The Everlasting Mercy'
1913 Publication of 'Dauber'
1930 Appointment as Poet Laureate
1961 Death of Constance Masefield
1967 Final Publication: 'The Complete Poems'

Philip Bourke Marston

1853 Early Education and Literary Influence of Philip Bourke Marston
1870 Engagement to Mary Nesbit
1871 Publication of 'Song-Tide and Other Poems'
1873 Loss of Vision
1875 Publication of 'All in All'
1883 Death of Philip Bourke Marston's Father
1887 Final Collection 'The Last Poems'
1888 Publication of Posthumous Works

Emotional landscapes

John Masefield: Longing, Sorrow, Wonder. Philip Bourke Marston: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness.

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