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

Bernard Barton Bernard Barton

Poet B

William Lisle Bowles William Lisle Bowles
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 72% Poems 87% Blended 79%
Swap sides Another related pair
Bernard Barton

Bernard Barton

31 January 1784 – 19 February 1849 (~65)
3 live poems · English

In the quiet market town of Woodbridge, Suffolk, where the River Deben winds its way toward the North Sea, lived one of the 19th century's most prolific yet paradoxical literary figures. Bernard Barton (1784-1849) occupied a unique position in English literature—a devout Quaker who found himself torn between the commercial demands of banking and the irrepressible call of poetry. His life story reads like a gentle reb…

“No age, sex, or condition is above or below the absolute necessity of modesty; but without it one is vastly beneath the rank of man.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace
William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles

24 September 1762 – 7 April 1850 (~88)
8 live poems · English

William Lisle Bowles (September 24, 1762 - April 7, 1850) stands as one of the more intriguing transitional figures in English literature, occupying the liminal space between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Though his reputation has diminished considerably over the centuries, Bowles's influence on major Romantic poets—particularly Samuel Taylor Coleridge—establishes him as a crucial bridge between literary eras. As a…

“The passions are best described by those circumstances which naturally call them forth.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality

In time

Bernard Barton
William Lisle Bowles
1762 1850
They overlapped for 66 years (1784–1849). When Bernard Barton was born, William Lisle Bowles was about 22. William Lisle Bowles was about 87 when Bernard Barton died.

On the map

About 338 km separate Carlisle, Cumberland, England from King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, 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

Bernard Barton: woodbridge, carlisle, quaker, charles lamb, lucy jesup, metrical effusions, poems, the convict's return. William Lisle Bowles: king's sutton, northamptonshire, samuel taylor coleridge, fourteen sonnets, natural imagery, romanticism, dr. joseph warton, the fair fidelia.

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.

On Some Pictures
Bernard Barton
80% romantic
Compare
Dover Cliffs
William Lisle Bowles
On Some Pictures
Bernard Barton
79% romantic, life
Compare
Fairy Sketch
William Lisle Bowles
All Is Vanity
Bernard Barton
77% world
Compare
Dover Cliffs
William Lisle Bowles
On True Worship
Bernard Barton
76%
Compare
Dover Cliffs
William Lisle Bowles
On Some Pictures
Bernard Barton
76% romantic
Compare
Oh! when 'tis summer weather
William Lisle Bowles
All Is Vanity
Bernard Barton
76%
Compare
To a Friend
William Lisle Bowles

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Bernard Barton: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace. William Lisle Bowles: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality.

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