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

Stephen Vincent Benét Stephen Vincent Benét

Poet B

Kahlil Gibran Kahlil Gibran
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 65% Poems 77% Blended 70%
Swap sides Another related pair
Stephen Vincent Benét

Stephen Vincent Benét

22 July 1898 – 13 March 1943 (~45)
2 live poems · English

Stephen Vincent Benét was a poet, novelist, and storyteller whose voice captured the sprawling, contradictory soul of America with a warmth and vigor that few writers of his era could match. In an age when modernism often turned inward toward fragmentation and irony, Benét looked outward, embracing history, folklore, and the ordinary heroism of everyday people. His words thrum with the crack of rifles at Harpers Ferr…

“Let each one of us say, 'I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Irony, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities
Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran

6 January 1883 – 10 April 1931 (~48)
5 live poems · English

Kahlil Gibran, born on 6 January 1883 in the mountain town of Bsharri, in what is now northern Lebanon, and dead on 10 April 1931 in New York City, became one of the most widely read literary figures of the twentieth century. He was a poet, prose writer, essayist, painter, draftsman, cultural critic, and immigrant intellectual whose work traveled between Arabic and English, Lebanon and the United States, Christianity…

“A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Arabic Poets, Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Persian Mystic Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Longing, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Stephen Vincent Benét
Kahlil Gibran
1883 1943
They overlapped for 34 years (1898–1931). When Stephen Vincent Benét was born, Kahlil Gibran was about 15. Stephen Vincent Benét was about 33 when Kahlil Gibran died.
Stephen Vincent Benét in history Kahlil Gibran in history Years they were given

On the map

About 9,128 km separate Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA from Bsharri, Lebanon. Both have ground in New York City and New York.

Stephen Vincent Benét

Kahlil Gibran

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.

Stephen Vincent Benét only

world love innovator pyramid tradition innovation mind praise

Kahlil Gibran only

spiritual self life existence longing tear smile duality sorrow journey soul cloud

From the biographies

Stephen Vincent Benét: fountain hill, harpers ferry, john brown's body, rosemary carr, pulitzer prize, the devil and daniel webster, yale university, william rose benét. Kahlil Gibran: bsharri, lebanon, new york city, the prophet, arab émigré literary movement, kamila rahmeh, khalil sa‘d gibran, mary elizabeth haskell.

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.

American Names
Stephen Vincent Benét
68%
Compare
Song of Man
Kahlil Gibran
American Names
Stephen Vincent Benét
66%
Compare
A Tear and a Smile
Kahlil Gibran
American Names
Stephen Vincent Benét
65%
Compare
On Talking
Kahlil Gibran
The Innovator
Stephen Vincent Benét
64%
Compare
Defeat
Kahlil Gibran
The Innovator
Stephen Vincent Benét
64%
Compare
On Talking
Kahlil Gibran
American Names
Stephen Vincent Benét
63%
Compare
Defeat
Kahlil Gibran

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1898 Crane's Experience in the Spanish-American War
1901 Establishment of the Nobel Prizes
1902 The Wright 1902 glider achieves practical three-axis control
1903 Publication of 'The Path of Dreams'
1903 Publication of 'The Souls of Black Folk'
1903 Wright Brothers Achieve First Powered Flight Using Wind Tunnel Research
1906 Appointment as editor of Punch
1906 Upton Sinclair Publishes 'The Jungle'

Stephen Vincent Benét

1922 Marriage to Elinor Wylie
1928 Publication of 'John Brown's Body'
1929 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
1930 Relocation to New York City
1936 Publication of 'The Devil and Daniel Webster'
1944 Second Pulitzer Prize for 'Western Star'

Kahlil Gibran

1895 Emigration to the United States
1896 Mentorship by Fred Holland Day
1905 First Major Publication: 'Music'
1916 Founding of the Pen League
1920 Friendship with William Blake
1923 Publication of 'The Prophet'
1924 Death of Gibran's Mother
1926 Publication of 'Sand and Foam'

Emotional landscapes

Stephen Vincent Benét: Sorrow, Irony, Despair. Kahlil Gibran: Spirituality, Longing, Wonder.

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