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

Phoebe Cary Phoebe Cary

Poet B

Lydia Huntley Sigourney Lydia Huntley Sigourney
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% Poems 80% Blended 78%
Swap sides Another related pair
Phoebe Cary

Phoebe Cary

4 September 1824 – 31 July 1871 (~47)
3 live poems · English

In the grand tapestry of American literature, the threads of the famous are often woven with the brightest gold, their names—Whitman, Dickinson, Poe—echoing through the ages. But the strength and beauty of the cloth also depend on the countless subtle, sturdy threads that provide its foundation, its texture, and its often overlooked complexity. Phoebe Cary was one such thread. A poet of sharp wit, profound empathy, a…

“It seems to me that a cord stretches from Alice’s heart to mine; nothing can hurt her that does not hurt me.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness
Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

1 September 1791 – 10 June 1865 (~74)
2 live poems · English

Lydia Huntley Sigourney, born Lydia Howard Huntley on 1 September 1791 in Norwich, Connecticut, became one of the most widely read, industrious, and culturally influential American writers of the nineteenth century. During the height of her career, her poems were printed in newspapers and magazines, memorized by schoolchildren, recited at funerals, quoted from pulpits, and displayed in family albums. She wrote for re…

“My mind was made up never to leave my parents. I felt that their absorbing love could never be repaid by the longest life-service.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality

In time

Phoebe Cary
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
1791 1871
They overlapped for 42 years (1824–1865). When Phoebe Cary was born, Lydia Huntley Sigourney was about 33. Phoebe Cary was about 41 when Lydia Huntley Sigourney died.

On the map

About 1,085 km separate Mount Healthy, Ohio, USA from Norwich, Connecticut, USA. Shared ground: United States.

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

women woman

Phoebe Cary: mount healthy, ohio wilderness, alice cary, rufus wilmot griswold, nearer home, one sweetly solemn thought, poems and parodies, a psalm of life. Lydia Huntley Sigourney: norwich, connecticut, sweet singer of hartford, moral pieces, traits of the aborigines of america, indian names, charles sigourney, daniel wadsworth.

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.

A Legend of the Northland
Phoebe Cary
71%
Compare
Christian Settlements in Africa
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Tried and True
Phoebe Cary
68% life, death
Compare
Death of an Infant
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Tried and True
Phoebe Cary
67%
Compare
Christian Settlements in Africa
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
A Legend of the Northland
Phoebe Cary
67%
Compare
Death of an Infant
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
A Psalm of Life
Phoebe Cary
66%
Compare
Christian Settlements in Africa
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
A Psalm of Life
Phoebe Cary
64% life
Compare
Death of an Infant
Lydia Huntley Sigourney

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Phoebe Cary: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness. Lydia Huntley Sigourney: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality.

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