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

William Byrd William Byrd

Poet B

John Ward John Ward
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 78% Poems 84% Blended 81%
Swap sides Another related pair
William Byrd

William Byrd

c. 1540 – 4 July 1623 (~83)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of English Renaissance composers, William Byrd stands as a towering figure whose musical genius transcended the turbulent religious and political landscape of his era. Born around 1540 and living until 1623, Byrd's extraordinary eighty-three-year lifespan encompassed the reigns of four monarchs and witnessed the profound transformation of English musical culture from medieval traditions to the floweri…

“The natural inclination and love to the art of music, wherein I have spent the better part of mine age, have been so powerful in me, that even in my old years which are desirous of rest, I cannot contain myself from taking some pains therein.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
John Ward

John Ward

8 September 1571 – 1638 (~67)
2 live poems · English

In the twilight years of Elizabeth I's reign, when England stood poised between the medieval world and the dawning age of Shakespeare, a composer emerged whose voice would capture the profound melancholy and spiritual yearning of a nation in transition. John Ward, born around 1571 and departing this world in 1638, represents one of the most compelling yet enigmatic figures in the pantheon of English Renaissance music…

“Should they prove distasteful with the queasy-palated, or surfeited delight, yet with the sound I presume they will pleasingly relish.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing

In time

William Byrd
John Ward
1540 1638
They overlapped for 53 years (1571–1623). When John Ward was born, William Byrd was about 31. John Ward was about 52 when William Byrd died.

On the map

About 88 km separate London, England from Canterbury, Kent, England. Both have ground in London.

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

From the biographies

music madrigals composer

William Byrd: english renaissance, thomas tallis, lincoln cathedral, queen elizabeth i, catholicism, recusancy, when younglings first, is love a boy?. John Ward: canterbury, thomas weelkes, orlando gibbons, upon a bank with roses set, retire my troubled soul, the first set of english madrigals, die now, my heart, elizabethan golden age.

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.

Come woeful Orpheus
William Byrd
81%
Compare
Upon a bank
John Ward
Come woeful Orpheus
William Byrd
75% grief
Compare
Come, sable night
John Ward
Is Love a boy?
William Byrd
74% love
Compare
Upon a bank
John Ward
Is Love a boy?
William Byrd
62%
Compare
Come, sable night
John Ward

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

William Byrd: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. John Ward: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.

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