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.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this 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

Julia Ward Howe Julia Ward Howe

Poet B

Edward Hovell-Thurlow Edward Hovell-Thurlow
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 59% Blended 59%
Swap sides Another related pair
Julia Ward Howe

Julia Ward Howe

27 May 1819 – 17 October 1910 (~91)
1 live poem · English

On a cold November morning in 1861, Julia Ward Howe awoke in her room at Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C., with verses forming in her mind. She had visited Union Army camps the previous day, witnessing thousands of soldiers preparing for battle while singing "John Brown's Body." Now, in the pre-dawn darkness, words came to her with unusual clarity and force. Rising quietly so as not to disturb her sleeping childre…

“Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities
Edward Hovell-Thurlow

Edward Hovell-Thurlow

10 June 1781 – 4 June 1829 (~48)
2 live poems · English

Edward Hovell-Thurlow, second Baron Thurlow, was born on 10 June 1781 in the Temple, London, and died at Brighton on 4 June 1829, six days before his forty-eighth birthday. He lived during one of the most turbulent and brilliant eras in English literary history: the age of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, the Regency, and the flowering of Romantic poetry. Yet he occupied an unusual position within that age…

Neighbourhood: Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Julia Ward Howe
Edward Hovell-Thurlow
1781 1910
They overlapped for 11 years (1819–1829). When Julia Ward Howe was born, Edward Hovell-Thurlow was about 38. Julia Ward Howe was about 10 when Edward Hovell-Thurlow died.
Julia Ward Howe in history Edward Hovell-Thurlow in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,571 km separate New York City, New York, USA from Westminster, London, England. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Julia Ward Howe

Edward Hovell-Thurlow

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.

No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.

Julia Ward Howe only

death social life laborer ethical hope charity

Edward Hovell-Thurlow only

thurlow world nature music season flowers lark summer beauty love landscape

From the biographies

Julia Ward Howe: washington d.c., battle hymn of the republic, john brown's body, passion flowers, samuel gridley howe, american woman suffrage association, mother's day proclamation, municipal housekeeping. Edward Hovell-Thurlow: temple, london, brighton, second baron thurlow, thomas thurlow, anne bere, edward thurlow, charterhouse school, magdalen college, oxford.

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.

To Death
Julia Ward Howe
67%
Compare
May
Edward Hovell-Thurlow
To Death
Julia Ward Howe
59%
Compare
The Summer
Edward Hovell-Thurlow

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1819 Byron Publishes Mazeppa and the First Two Cantos of Don Juan
1819 John Keats Writes 'To Autumn' Celebrating the Season's Winds
1819 Keats's 'Great Year' of 1819
1819 Publication of 'Rime' (Poems)
1819 Shelley Writes Ode to the West Wind
1823 Byron Joins the Greek War of Independence
1823 Publication of 'The Poems of Jeremiah Joseph Callanan'
1824 Lord Byron Arrives in Missolonghi to Lead the Greek Forces

Julia Ward Howe

1830 Education at the New York City School for Girls
1843 Marriage to Samuel Gridley Howe
1852 Involvement in the Women's Suffrage Movement
1854 Publication of 'Passion Flowers'
1861 Publication of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'
1868 Founding of the New England Women's Club
1872 Founding of Mother's Day
1876 Travel to Europe for literary and social engagements

Edward Hovell-Thurlow

1785 Appointment as Principal Registrar
1788 Clerk of the Custodies Appointment
1805 Marriage to Lady Mary Thurlow
1811 Publication of 'The Poetical Works'
1812 Patronage by Lord Byron
1822 Friendship with John Keats
1825 Publication of 'The Last Poems'
1829 Death of Edward Hovell-Thurlow

Emotional landscapes

Julia Ward Howe: Irony, Sorrow, Spirituality. Edward Hovell-Thurlow: Joy, Wonder, Tenderness.

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