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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I 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

Joseph Campbell Joseph Campbell

Poet B

James Edwin Campbell James Edwin Campbell
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 90% Blended 82%
Swap sides Another related pair
Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell

15 July 1879 – 6 June 1944 (~65)
6 live poems · English

In the pantheon of Irish literary figures who shaped the cultural renaissance of the early twentieth century, Joseph Campbell occupies a unique position as both a guardian of ancient Gaelic traditions and a modernizing force in Irish poetry. Born on July 15, 1879, in Belfast, and dying on June 6, 1944, Campbell lived through one of the most tumultuous and transformative periods in Irish history. His life spanned the…

“Then the mood changes, and I feel rising up in me the sorrow that is the dominating passion of my life.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Georgian Poets, Irish Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities
James Edwin Campbell

James Edwin Campbell

28 September 1867 – 26 January 1896 (~29)
3 live poems · English

James Edwin Campbell was born on September 28, 1867, in Pomeroy, Ohio, and died there on January 26, 1896, before he had reached his twenty-ninth birthday. His life was brief, but it was unusually full: he was a teacher, school principal, educational organizer, newspaper editor, essayist, public speaker, and poet. Most enduringly, he was an important early African American literary artist whose poems preserved the sp…

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Harlem Renaissance, Love Poets, Social Justice Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Sensuality, Joy
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Joseph Campbell
James Edwin Campbell
1867 1944
They overlapped for 18 years (1879–1896). When Joseph Campbell was born, James Edwin Campbell was about 12. Joseph Campbell was about 17 when James Edwin Campbell died.
Joseph Campbell in history James Edwin Campbell in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,736 km separate Belfast, Northern Ireland from Pomeroy, Ohio, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Joseph Campbell

James Edwin Campbell

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

world life soul

Joseph Campbell only

woman irish nature stars candle ruined travail light ghosts dead revival ruins

James Edwin Campbell only

face king crimes dream love passionate african birds sound toiler play music

From the biographies

culture

Joseph Campbell: belfast, county down, seosamh mac cathmhaoil, my lagan love, gartan mother's lullaby, irish literary revival, ulster literary theatre, the little cowherd of slainge. James Edwin Campbell: pomeroy, ohio, driftings and gleanings, echoes from the cabin, paul laurence dunbar, west virginia teachers’ association, west virginia colored institute, mary lewis champ, kerr’s run colored school.

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 Woman at the Well
Joseph Campbell
81% world
Compare
Bird-Song
James Edwin Campbell
How Still the Night
Joseph Campbell
77% soul
Compare
A Love Dream
James Edwin Campbell
How Still the Night
Joseph Campbell
77% world
Compare
Bird-Song
James Edwin Campbell
Ghosts
Joseph Campbell
76%
Compare
A Love Dream
James Edwin Campbell
The Young Girl
Joseph Campbell
76% world
Compare
Bird-Song
James Edwin Campbell
The Young Girl
Joseph Campbell
76%
Compare
A Love Dream
James Edwin Campbell

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1879 Edison Demonstrates the Carbon-Filament Incandescent Lamp
1882 Nietzsche Declares 'God is Dead'
1882 Robert Koch Discovers the Tuberculosis Bacillus
1883 Emil Christian Hansen Isolates a Pure Yeast Culture at Carlsberg
1883 Friedrich Nietzsche Publishes 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
1883 Publication of 'Treasure Island'
1884 Oxford English Dictionary Begins Publication
1884 Publication of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'

Joseph Campbell

1896 Education at Queen's University Belfast
1906 Marriage to Mary McGowan
1913 Publication of 'The Great Day'
1914 Involvement with the Gaelic League
1920 Publication of 'Songs of the Irish' and 'The Lament for the Sons of the Gael'
1923 Relocation to Dublin
1936 Publication of 'The Complete Poems of Joseph Campbell'
1940 Involvement in the Irish Literary Revival

James Edwin Campbell

1867 Birth of James Edwin Campbell in Pomeroy, Ohio
1874 Early Education at Kerr's Run Colored School
1887 Publication of Driftings and Gleanings
1892 Appointment as First Principal of West Virginia Colored Institute
1894 Role as Newspaper Editor
1895 Involvement in Educational Reforms
1895 Publication of Echoes from the Cabin and Elsewhere
1896 Death of James Edwin Campbell in Pomeroy, Ohio

Emotional landscapes

Joseph Campbell: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder. James Edwin Campbell: Wonder, Sensuality, Joy.

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