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

Wang Wei Wang Wei

Poet B

Du Fu Du Fu
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 78% Blended 78%
Swap sides Another related pair
Wang Wei

Wang Wei

699 – 761 (~62)
1 live poem · Mandarin Chinese

Among the towering figures of China’s Golden Age of poetry, Wang Wei stands apart—not as a rival to Li Bai’s celestial intoxication or Du Fu’s earthly anguish, but as a quiet, meditative counterpoint. He is the poet of the empty mountain, the painter of the silent stream, the musician who heard the cosmic resonance in a single falling blossom. To read Wang Wei is to step into a landscape where human presence is a fle…

“Now I am sitting alone. I listen, but cannot hear my grooms and servants move or speak. I think much of old days: how hand in hand, composing poems as we went, we walked down twisting paths to the banks of clear streams.”

Neighbourhood: Ancient & Classical Poets, Classical & Ancient Poets, Classical Chinese Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Wonder, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities
Du Fu

Du Fu

712 – 770 (~58)
1 live poem · Mandarin Chinese

Du Fu, born in 712 and dead by the end of 770, stands among the most deeply admired poets in the Chinese language and among the great literary witnesses of world history. He lived through the glittering late flowering and violent fracture of the Tang dynasty, an age remembered for imperial splendor, cosmopolitan confidence, artistic achievement, civil war, famine, displacement, and political decline. His poems preser…

Neighbourhood: Ancient & Classical Poets, Chinese Poets, Classical & Ancient Poets, Classical Chinese Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Wang Wei
Du Fu
699 770
They overlapped for 50 years (712–761). When Du Fu was born, Wang Wei was about 13. Du Fu was about 49 when Wang Wei died.
Wang Wei in history Du Fu in history Years they were given

On the map

About 463 km separate Chang'an, China from Gong County, Henan, China. Shared ground: China.

Wang Wei

Du Fu

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

wang world

Wang Wei only

chai mountain light moss empty voices nature forest buddhist

Du Fu only

chun confucian enduring power heart

From the biographies

chang'an an lushan rebellion tang history court

Wang Wei: taiyuan, chang'an, an lushan rebellion, peid di, wangchuan valley, nature school, buddhist practice, pipa virtuoso. Du Fu: tang dynasty, chang'an, luoyang, li bai, an lushan rebellion, moonlit night, the ballad of the army carts, the song of the beautiful ladies.

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.

Lu Chai
Wang Wei
78% wang, world
Compare
Chun Wang
Du Fu

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

712 Emergence of Tang Poetry Golden Age
713 Introduction of Paper to the Islamic World
716 Establishment of the House of Wisdom in Baghdad
716 Introduction of Paper to the Islamic World
718 Establishment of the Umayyad Caliphate's influence in Spain
719 Introduction of Paper in the Islamic World
722 Battle of Tours
755 Du Fu's Experience During the An Lushan Rebellion

Wang Wei

709 Education in Taiyuan
720 Marriage to a Noblewoman
740 First Major Poetry Collection
750 Friendship with Poets Li Bai and Du Fu
755 Appointment as a Government Official
756 Exile During the An Lushan Rebellion
760 Return to Poetry After Exile

Du Fu

720 Du Fu's Early Education and Literary Development
735 Du Fu's First Attempt at the Jinshi Examination
740 Du Fu's Marriage to Zhang Yichan
744 Du Fu's Encounter with Li Bai
755 Du Fu's Experience During the An Lushan Rebellion
757 Du Fu's Time in Luoyang
765 Du Fu's Final Years in Chengdu
770 Du Fu's Death and Legacy

Emotional landscapes

Wang Wei: Peace, Wonder, Spirituality. Du Fu: Despair, Sorrow, Longing.

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