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 Ernest Henley William Ernest Henley

Poet B

A. A. Milne A. A. Milne
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 61% Poems 82% Blended 70%
Swap sides Another related pair
William Ernest Henley

William Ernest Henley

23 August 1849 – 11 July 1903 (~54)
8 live poems · English

William Ernest Henley was born on 23 August 1849 in Gloucester, England, and died on 11 July 1903 at Woking, Surrey. He occupies an unusual place in English literary history: widely remembered by the public for a single short poem, “Invictus,” yet far more consequential in his own age as a poet, editor, critic, journalist, dramatist, and formidable presence in literary society. Henley’s life was shaped by physical pa…

“He knew that it is the function of the man of genius to show that theory is only theory, and that in the House of Morality there are many mansions.”

Neighbourhood: Confessional Poets, Death & Mortality, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
A. A. Milne

A. A. Milne

18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956 (~74)
67 live poems · English

Alan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London, on 18 January 1882, into a household where education, discipline, and intellectual curiosity were daily realities. He was the youngest of three sons of John Vine Milne and Sarah Marie Heginbotham Milne. His father was the headmaster of Henley House School, a small independent school in Kilburn, and the school stood at the center of family life. The young Alan was educ…

“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Neighbourhood: Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Tenderness

In time

William Ernest Henley
A. A. Milne
1849 1956
They overlapped for 22 years (1882–1903). When A. A. Milne was born, William Ernest Henley was about 33. A. A. Milne was about 21 when William Ernest Henley died.

On the map

About 147 km separate Gloucester, England from Hampstead, London, England. Both have ground in England.

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

William Ernest Henley: gloucester, woking, invictus, thomas edward brown, joseph lister, in hospital sequence, anna boyle, margaret emma henley. A. A. Milne: kilburn, henley house school, h. g. wells, trinity college, granta, punch, winnie-the-pooh, christopher robin.

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.

The Blackbird
William Ernest Henley
74% blackbird, world
Compare
The Wrong House
A. A. Milne
Invictus
William Ernest Henley
73%
Compare
Waiting At The Window
A. A. Milne
When the wind storms by with a shout
William Ernest Henley
73%
Compare
The Island
A. A. Milne
The Blackbird
William Ernest Henley
73% world, life
Compare
The Invaders
A. A. Milne
Life is bitter
William Ernest Henley
73%
Compare
Waiting At The Window
A. A. Milne
Life is bitter
William Ernest Henley
72% life
Compare
Water-Lillies
A. A. Milne

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

William Ernest Henley: Sorrow, Despair, Longing. A. A. Milne: Joy, Wonder, Tenderness.

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