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

Frances E. W. Harper Frances E. W. Harper

Poet B

Phoebe Cary Phoebe Cary
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 74% Poems 78% Blended 76%
Swap sides Another related pair
Frances E. W. Harper

Frances E. W. Harper

24 September 1825 – 22 February 1911 (~86)
4 live poems · English

In the rich tapestry of nineteenth-century American literature and reform, few figures shine as brightly—or with as enduring a flame—as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Born into freedom yet forged in the fires of racial injustice, she emerged as a poet of profound moral vision, a tireless abolitionist lecturer, a pioneering novelist, and a champion of women’s rights, temperance, and Black uplift. Her life spanned the a…

“We are all bound up together in one great bundle of humanity, and society cannot trample on the weakest and feeblest of its members without receiving the curse in its own soul.”

Neighbourhood: African American Poets, American Poets, Political Poets, Social Justice Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities
Phoebe Cary

Phoebe Cary

4 September 1824 – 31 July 1871 (~47)
3 live poems · English

In the grand tapestry of American literature, the threads of the famous are often woven with the brightest gold, their names—Whitman, Dickinson, Poe—echoing through the ages. But the strength and beauty of the cloth also depend on the countless subtle, sturdy threads that provide its foundation, its texture, and its often overlooked complexity. Phoebe Cary was one such thread. A poet of sharp wit, profound empathy, a…

“It seems to me that a cord stretches from Alice’s heart to mine; nothing can hurt her that does not hurt me.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Hymn Writers, Victorian Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Frances E. W. Harper
Phoebe Cary
1824 1911
They overlapped for 47 years (1825–1871). When Frances E. W. Harper was born, Phoebe Cary was about 1. Frances E. W. Harper was about 46 when Phoebe Cary died.
Frances E. W. Harper in history Phoebe Cary in history Years they were given

On the map

About 683 km separate Baltimore, Maryland, USA from Mount Healthy, Ohio, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Frances E. W. Harper

Phoebe Cary

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

heart

Frances E. W. Harper only

slavery free mother slave abolitionist religious authority truth christian biblical bible scripture

Phoebe Cary only

life woman social marriage women unmarried friend friendship death companionship tried saint

From the biographies

the slave mother women woman

Frances E. W. Harper: baltimore, maryland, frederick douglass, the slave mother, poems on miscellaneous subjects, the elevation and education of our people, fenton harper, sketches of southern life, moses: a story of the nile. Phoebe Cary: mount healthy, ohio wilderness, alice cary, rufus wilmot griswold, nearer home, one sweetly solemn thought, poems and parodies, a psalm of life.

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.

Bible Defence of Slavery
Frances E. W. Harper
67%
Compare
A Psalm of Life
Phoebe Cary
The Slave Mother
Frances E. W. Harper
67% heart
Compare
A Psalm of Life
Phoebe Cary
Bible Defence of Slavery
Frances E. W. Harper
65%
Compare
A Legend of the Northland
Phoebe Cary
Free Labor
Frances E. W. Harper
65%
Compare
A Legend of the Northland
Phoebe Cary
The Slave Mother
Frances E. W. Harper
64%
Compare
A Legend of the Northland
Phoebe Cary
Bible Defence of Slavery
Frances E. W. Harper
64%
Compare
Tried and True
Phoebe Cary

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1830 Indian Removal Act of 1830
1831 Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction in London
1831 HMS Beagle Begins Darwin's Survey Voyage
1831 Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction
1831 Publication of 'Canti'
1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'
1836 Publication of 'Nature'

Frances E. W. Harper

1828 Frances E. W. Harper's Orphanhood
1830 Education at Watkins Academy
1845 First Published Work
1872 Publication of 'Sketches of Southern Life'
1892 Publication of 'Iola; or, Shadows Uplifted'
1893 Involvement in the Suffrage Movement
1894 Publication of 'Complete Poems'
1896 Founding of the National Association of Colored Women

Phoebe Cary

1840 Cary Sisters' Literary Beginnings
1854 First Publication of Poetry
1854 Publication of 'Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary'
1856 Friendship with Edgar Allan Poe
1860 Contribution to Literary Magazines
1867 Involvement in Women's Rights Movement
1871 Death of Sister Alice Cary
1871 Final Publication Before Death

Emotional landscapes

Frances E. W. Harper: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality. Phoebe Cary: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness.

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