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

Dorothy Greenwell Dorothy Greenwell

Poet B

Mathilde Blind Mathilde Blind
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 83% Blended 79%
Swap sides Another related pair
Dorothy Greenwell

Dorothy Greenwell

6 December 1821 – 29 March 1882 (~61)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of Victorian literature, where names like Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold dominate the landscape, the voice of Dorothy "Dora" Greenwell emerges as both distinctive and revelatory. Born into the rolling hills of County Durham on December 6, 1821, and departing this world on March 29, 1882, in Clifton near Bristol, Greenwell crafted a literary legacy that bridged the sacred and secular, the personal and…

“I was born beneath quiet hills, among green pastures, beside still waters. My first companion was a little stream, my earliest counsellor an ancient Book.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Tenderness
Mathilde Blind

Mathilde Blind

21 March 1841 – 26 November 1896 (~55)
6 live poems · English

In the pantheon of Victorian literature, where names like Tennyson, Browning, and Christina Rossetti shine brightest, the figure of Mathilde Blind occupies a curious position—both central and marginal, celebrated and forgotten. Born into revolution and raised in exile, Blind carved out a unique space in the literary landscape of nineteenth-century Britain as a poet, translator, and pioneering feminist voice. Her life…

“A rigidity as unnatural as it is dangerous would be the result of too tenacious a clinging to inherited memories.”

Neighbourhood: Political Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness

In time

Dorothy Greenwell
Mathilde Blind
1821 1896
They overlapped for 42 years (1841–1882). When Mathilde Blind was born, Dorothy Greenwell was about 20. Mathilde Blind was about 41 when Dorothy Greenwell died.

On the map

About 908 km separate Greenwell Ford, Lanchester, County Durham, England from Mannheim, Baden, Germany. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

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

social women

Dorothy Greenwell: county durham, greenwell ford, the patience of hope, songs of salvation, henry wadsworth longfellow, victorian literature, anglican faith, women's rights. Mathilde Blind: mannheim, german revolutionary, karl blind, the prophecy of saint oran, the heather on fire, highland clearances, george eliot, the ascent of man.

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 Soul's Parting
Dorothy Greenwell
77% love
Compare
Love, oh, Love's a dainty sweeting
Mathilde Blind
The Soul's Parting
Dorothy Greenwell
76% life
Compare
The Dead
Mathilde Blind
I Am Not Skilled to Understand
Dorothy Greenwell
76% life
Compare
Suffering
Mathilde Blind
The Soul's Parting
Dorothy Greenwell
74% life, grief
Compare
Suffering
Mathilde Blind
The Soul's Parting
Dorothy Greenwell
73%
Compare
On and On
Mathilde Blind

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Dorothy Greenwell: Spirituality, Peace, Tenderness. Mathilde Blind: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness.

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