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

Robert Greene Robert Greene

Poet B

George Peele George Peele
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 76% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
Robert Greene

Robert Greene

c. 11 July 1558 – 3 September 1592 (~34)
1 live poem · English

In the swirling mists of Elizabethan England, where the stage was set for literary giants and the printing press hummed with new voices, Robert Greene emerged as one of the most fascinating and contradictory figures of his age. Born around 1560 and dead by 1592 at the tender age of thirty-two, Greene packed into his brief existence a remarkable literary output that would influence English drama and prose for generati…

“For there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger's heart wrapped in a Player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Despair
George Peele

George Peele

c. 25 July 1556 – 9 November 1596 (~40)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of Elizabethan literary giants, where Shakespeare reigns supreme and Marlowe commands reverence, the name George Peele often languishes in relative obscurity. Yet this neglect does a profound disservice to a playwright and poet whose contributions to English literature were both innovative and influential. Born around 1556 and dying in 1596 at the tragically young age of forty, Peele packed into his b…

Neighbourhood: Dramatic Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Irish Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sensuality, Tenderness, Longing

In time

Robert Greene
George Peele
1556 1596
They overlapped for 35 years (1558–1592). When Robert Greene was born, George Peele was about 2. George Peele was about 36 when Robert Greene died.

On the map

About 158 km separate Norwich, England from London, 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

london

Robert Greene: norwich, st. john's college, elizabethan england, mamillia, pandosto, friar bacon and friar bungay, university wit, cony-catching pamphlets. George Peele: london, christ's hospital, broadgates hall, oxford, university wits, the arraignment of paris, the old wives' tale, edward i.

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.

Sephestia's Song to Her Child
Robert Greene
73%
Compare
Bethsabe's Song
George Peele
Sephestia's Song to Her Child
Robert Greene
67% love
Compare
What Thing Is Love
George Peele

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Robert Greene: Sorrow, Tenderness, Despair. George Peele: Sensuality, Tenderness, Longing.

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