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.

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

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott

Poet B

James Hogg James Hogg
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 73% Poems 83% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott

15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832 (~61)
2 live poems · English

Sir Walter Scott, born in Edinburgh on 15 August 1771 and dead at Abbotsford on 21 September 1832, became one of the most influential writers in the English language: a poet who dominated the reading public before Byron, a novelist who effectively established the modern historical novel, an editor and antiquarian who preserved Scottish oral traditions, a lawyer and public official, a conservative political figure, an…

“Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce, and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities
James Hogg

James Hogg

c. 9 December 1770 – 21 November 1835 (~65)
2 live poems · English

The story of James Hogg is one of the most remarkable and unlikely ascents in the history of British literature. Born into the humblest of circumstances in the wilds of the Scottish Borders, he rose from a life of manual labour to stand, albeit often awkwardly, alongside the literary giants of his age. He was a man of profound contradictions: a self-taught genius who could be as coarse as he was inspired, a humble sh…

“I have sometimes been eiry for losing your countenance [...] when a man loses conceit of himself he thinks and not without foundation that every body does the same.”

Neighbourhood: Georgian Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Fear, Joy
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Sir Walter Scott
James Hogg
1770 1835
They overlapped for 62 years (1771–1832). When Sir Walter Scott was born, James Hogg was about 1. James Hogg was about 62 when Sir Walter Scott died.
Sir Walter Scott in history James Hogg in history Years they were given

On the map

About 59 km separate Edinburgh, Scotland from Ettrick, Selkirkshire, Scotland. Both have ground in Edinburgh.

Sir Walter Scott

James Hogg

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.

No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.

Sir Walter Scott only

death robin proud marriage bird social life spindle spinning pain thread pleasure

James Hogg only

hogg chant supernatural witch power conscience heaven spirits world landscape childhood rural

From the biographies

scottish novel

Sir Walter Scott: edinburgh, abbotsford, charlotte carpenter, minstrelsy of the scottish border, the lay of the last minstrel, marmion, the lady of the lake, rokeby. James Hogg: scottish borders, ettrick shepherd, the private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner, sir walter scott, the queen's wake, kilmeny, the witch of fife, the mountain bard.

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.

Proud Maisie
Sir Walter Scott
74%
Compare
A Witch's Chant
James Hogg
Proud Maisie
Sir Walter Scott
72%
Compare
A Boy's Song
James Hogg
The Spindle Song
Sir Walter Scott
71%
Compare
A Witch's Chant
James Hogg
The Spindle Song
Sir Walter Scott
71%
Compare
A Boy's Song
James Hogg

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1773 Publication of 'Poems on Various Subjects'
1774 Goethe publishes The Sorrows of Young Werther
1775 American Revolution Begins
1777 The Battles of Saratoga bring France towards the American alliance
1783 The Treaty of Paris (1783) Secures American Independence
1787 The Northwest Ordinance of 1787
1789 French Revolution Begins
1789 The Bastille Stormed — Prison Fortress Falls

Sir Walter Scott

1783 Education at the University of Edinburgh
1797 Marriage to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter
1805 Publication of 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel'
1808 Publication of 'Marmion'
1810 Publication of 'The Lady of the Lake'
1811 Establishment of Abbotsford as a Literary Retreat
1820 Involvement in the Scottish Literary Society
1826 Death of Charlotte Scott

James Hogg

1777 Education and Early Work Experience of James Hogg
1802 Marriage of James Hogg
1807 Publication of 'The Mountain Bard'
1810 Friendship with Sir Walter Scott
1824 Publication of 'The Confessions of a Justified Sinner'
1825 Publication of 'The Shepherd's Calendar'
1826 Recognition and Patronage from Sir Walter Scott
1833 Final Years and Struggles

Emotional landscapes

Sir Walter Scott: Sorrow, Wonder, Longing. James Hogg: Wonder, Fear, Joy.

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