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.

After the death of my mother, 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.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

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.

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

Sir Charles Sedley Sir Charles Sedley

Poet B

Charles Sackville Charles Sackville
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 83% Blended 83%
Swap sides Another related pair
Sir Charles Sedley

Sir Charles Sedley

March 1639 – 20 August 1701 (~62)
1 live poem · English

Sir Charles Sedley, fifth baronet, was born in March 1639 and died on 20 August 1701. He belonged to that brilliant and troubling generation of Restoration writers whose lives seem inseparable from the political convulsions, sexual freedoms, theatrical revivals, and moral contradictions of later seventeenth-century England. Poet, playwright, translator, conversational wit, courtier, landowner, and member of Parliamen…

“As the king has made my daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to assist in making his Majesty's daughter a queen.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Light Verse Poets, Restoration Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Irony, Joy
Listen Timeline Affinities
Charles Sackville

Charles Sackville

24 January 1643 – 29 January 1706 (~63)
1 live poem · English

Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset, was born on 24 January 1638 and died on 29 January 1706. Although his birth year is occasionally given incorrectly as 1643, the date generally accepted by modern biographical scholarship is 1638. He was one of the most vivid aristocratic personalities of Restoration England: a court wit, lyric poet, naval volunteer, political officeholder, patron of writers, and, in his youth,…

Neighbourhood: Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Restoration Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Sir Charles Sedley
Charles Sackville
1639 1706
They overlapped for 59 years (1643–1701). When Charles Sackville was born, Sir Charles Sedley was about 4. Charles Sackville was about 58 when Sir Charles Sedley died.
Sir Charles Sedley in history Charles Sackville in history Years they were given

On the map

About 61 km separate Allington Castle, Kent, England from Copt Hall, Essex, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

Sir Charles Sedley

Charles Sackville

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

love restoration

Sir Charles Sedley only

sedley phillis self courtly desire pleasure

Charles Sackville only

sackville life sailors spirit

From the biographies

restoration social court culture

Sir Charles Sedley: restoration writers, bellamira, merry gang, lady katherine savage, catherine sedley, pompey the great, the mulberry-garden, antony and cleopatra. Charles Sackville: dorset, restoration, social, earl, court, patron, culture, patronage.

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.

Phillis is my only Joy
Sir Charles Sedley
75% love, restoration
Compare
A Ballad by the Lord Dorset when at Sea
Charles Sackville

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1644 The Qing capture Beijing after the Ming collapse
1648 Publication of 'Hesperides'
1649 Cromwellian Conquest of Ireland
1649 England Declared a Commonwealth
1649 Trial of Charles I
1650 Publication of 'Silex Scintillans'
1651 Battle of Worcester
1660 The English Restoration

Sir Charles Sedley

1655 Education at Wadham College, Oxford
1656 Inheritance of Baronetcy
1668 First Published Work: 'The Mulberry Garden'
1679 Political Career and Role in Parliament
1681 Controversial Incident at the Theatre
1684 Publication of 'The Works of Sir Charles Sedley'
1690 Return to England and Resumption of Literary Work
1701 Final Years and Legacy

Charles Sackville

1656 Education and Early Travels of Charles Sackville
1660 Involvement in the Court of Charles II
1661 Entry into Parliament
1665 Marriage to Lady Frances Leveson-Gower
1670 Patronage of John Dryden
1678 Publication of 'The Ballad of the Earl of Essex'
1695 Death of Lady Frances Sackville
1701 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of the Earl of Dorset'

Emotional landscapes

Sir Charles Sedley: Tenderness, Irony, Joy. Charles Sackville: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.

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