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

Henry Scott Holland Henry Scott Holland

Poet B

Robert Stephen Hawker Robert Stephen Hawker
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 72% Blended 72%
Swap sides Another related pair
Henry Scott Holland

Henry Scott Holland

27 January 1847 – 17 March 1918 (~71)
1 live poem · English

Henry Scott Holland was born on 27 January 1847 at Ledbury, Herefordshire, into a world of Anglican privilege, classical education, and public duty. He died on 17 March 1918 in Oxford, at the close of a life spent attempting to make Christianity answerable to the moral crises of modern society. He was not, in the ordinary sense, a poet: he did not build his reputation through volumes of verse, nor did he belong to th…

“Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Spirituality, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities
Robert Stephen Hawker

Robert Stephen Hawker

3 December 1803 – 15 August 1875 (~72)
3 live poems · English

In the rugged landscape of Victorian Cornwall, where granite cliffs meet the tempestuous Atlantic and ancient legends whisper through the mist, there lived a man whose life embodied the very essence of romantic poetry. Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875) was not merely a poet who happened to be a clergyman, nor simply a priest who dabbled in verse. He was a singular figure whose eccentric personality, passionate dedica…

“What a life mine would be if it were all written and published in a book.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Fear
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Henry Scott Holland
Robert Stephen Hawker
1803 1918
They overlapped for 29 years (1847–1875). When Henry Scott Holland was born, Robert Stephen Hawker was about 44. Henry Scott Holland was about 28 when Robert Stephen Hawker died.
Henry Scott Holland in history Robert Stephen Hawker in history Years they were given

On the map

About 209 km separate Ledbury, Herefordshire, England from Plymouth, Devon, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

Henry Scott Holland

Robert Stephen Hawker

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

death dead life

Henry Scott Holland only

memory relationship love grief room voice name

Robert Stephen Hawker only

cornwall london authority community vine church bine divine faith fruit ancient race

From the biographies

church

Henry Scott Holland: ledbury, herefordshire, oxford, reverend george henry holland, charlotte dorothy, death is nothing at all, creed and character, christian social union. Robert Stephen Hawker: cornwall, morwenstow, charlotte i'ans, newdigate prize, pompeii, tendrils, records of the western shore, ecclesia.

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.

All is Well
Henry Scott Holland
68%
Compare
The Bine
Robert Stephen Hawker
All is Well
Henry Scott Holland
67%
Compare
The Song of the Western Men
Robert Stephen Hawker
All is Well
Henry Scott Holland
63% death, dead, life
Compare
The Death-Race
Robert Stephen Hawker

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1847 Publication of Agnes Grey
1848 Communist Manifesto Published
1848 Publication of 'All Things Bright and Beautiful'
1848 Publication of 'Once in Royal David's City'
1848 Publication of The Biglow Papers
1848 Publication of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
1850 Publication of 'In Memoriam A.H.H.'
1851 Publication of Moby-Dick

Henry Scott Holland

1866 Matriculation at Balliol College, Oxford
1872 Ordination as Deacon
1874 Ordination as Priest
1876 Appointment as Senior Student at Christ Church
1890 Publication of 'The Light of the World'
1897 Involvement with the Christian Social Union
1908 Publication of 'The Church and the Future'
1918 Death of Henry Scott Holland

Robert Stephen Hawker

1821 Education at Exeter College, Oxford
1827 Ordination as a Priest
1830 Marriage to Elizabeth Anne
1836 Publication of 'Cornish Ballads and Other Poems'
1845 Publication of 'The Quest of the Sangraal'
1851 Theological Controversies and Resignation
1860 Publication of 'The Cornish Poems'
1863 Death of His Wife, Elizabeth

Emotional landscapes

Henry Scott Holland: Peace, Spirituality, Tenderness. Robert Stephen Hawker: Spirituality, Wonder, Fear.

Skip to main content