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

John Ruskin John Ruskin

Poet B

William Bell Scott William Bell Scott
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 72% Blended 72%
Swap sides Another related pair
John Ruskin

John Ruskin

8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900 (~81)
1 live poem · English

John Ruskin was born in London on 8 February 1819, the only child of John James Ruskin and Margaret Cox Ruskin. He would become one of the nineteenth century’s most forceful and distinctive voices: an art critic, social thinker, lecturer, draftsman, historian of architecture, environmental observer, moral philosopher, and writer of prose whose rhythms often approached poetry. Though he is not chiefly remembered as a…

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way.”

Neighbourhood: Nature Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities
William Bell Scott

William Bell Scott

12 September 1811 – 22 November 1890 (~79)
3 live poems · English

William Bell Scott was born in Edinburgh on 12 September 1811, into a family in which art was both a livelihood and an atmosphere. He was the eldest surviving son of Robert Scott, an engraver of considerable skill and a man of strong intellectual interests, and Ross Bell Scott. The household was not wealthy, but it was rich in artistic ambition, professional discipline, books, conversation, and the practical awarenes…

“When we fully attain to conscious volition as a possession, to the antagonism of the me and the not me, we suddenly become a rational hide-bound creature.”

Neighbourhood: Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Scottish Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

John Ruskin
William Bell Scott
1811 1900
They overlapped for 72 years (1819–1890). When John Ruskin was born, William Bell Scott was about 8. John Ruskin was about 71 when William Bell Scott died.
John Ruskin in history William Bell Scott in history Years they were given

On the map

About 534 km separate London, England from Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

John Ruskin

William Bell Scott

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

memory

John Ruskin only

smile beauty beloved woman light presence

William Bell Scott only

life moon lunar silence imaginative monsters mare past self selves ghosts identity

From the biographies

landscape industrial

John Ruskin: london, pre-raphaelite movement, arts and crafts movement, modern painters, newdigate prize, salsette and elephanta, the stones of venice, the seven lamps of architecture. William Bell Scott: edinburgh, david scott, paul's letters to his kinsfolk, the onward tide, newcastle upon tyne, trevelyan family, wallington hall, trustees' academy.

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 Last Smile
John Ruskin
71%
Compare
Age
William Bell Scott
The Last Smile
John Ruskin
71%
Compare
Mare Serenitatis
William Bell Scott
The Last Smile
John Ruskin
69% memory
Compare
Seeking Forgetfulness
William Bell Scott

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1819 Byron Publishes Mazeppa and the First Two Cantos of Don Juan
1819 John Keats Writes 'To Autumn' Celebrating the Season's Winds
1819 Shelley Writes Ode to the West Wind
1823 Byron Joins the Greek War of Independence
1823 Publication of 'The Poems of Jeremiah Joseph Callanan'
1824 Lord Byron Arrives in Missolonghi to Lead the Greek Forces
1830 Indian Removal Act of 1830
1831 Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction

John Ruskin

1836 John Ruskin's Education at Christ Church, Oxford
1843 Publication of 'Modern Painters'
1849 Publication of 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture'
1850 Ruskin's Involvement with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
1851 Publication of 'The Stones of Venice'
1871 Publication of 'Fors Clavigera'
1878 Ruskin's Breakdown and Subsequent Retreat
1900 Ruskin's Death and Legacy

William Bell Scott

1826 William Bell Scott's Education at the Trustees' Academy
1836 Marriage to Mary Ann Scott
1848 Involvement with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
1854 Appointment as Professor of Drawing at the Newcastle School of Art
1864 Publication of 'The Coming of the Fairies'
1868 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of William Bell Scott'
1876 Death of William Bell Scott's Wife, Mary Ann
1890 Death of William Bell Scott

Emotional landscapes

John Ruskin: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness. William Bell Scott: Longing, Wonder, Spirituality.

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