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

Richard Tottel Richard Tottel

Poet B

Sir Thomas Wyatt Sir Thomas Wyatt
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 88% Blended 80%
Swap sides Another related pair
Richard Tottel

Richard Tottel

c. 1528 – 2 July 1593 (~65)
2 live poems · English

Richard Tottel, born around 1528 or 1530 in the bustling cathedral city of Exeter in Devon, emerged from modest provincial roots to become one of the most transformative figures in the history of English literature. Though his primary trade was the printing of law books—volumes that shaped the legal minds of Tudor England—his name endures as the visionary behind *Songes and Sonettes*, better known today as *Tottel’s…

“It resteth nowe (gentle reder) that thou thinke it not evill doon, to publish, to the honor of the Englishe tong, and for profit of the studious of Englishe eloquence, those workes which the vngentle horders vp of such treasure have heretofore envied thee.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
Sir Thomas Wyatt

Sir Thomas Wyatt

c. 1503 – 11 October 1542 (~39)
3 live poems · English

Sir Thomas Wyatt, born about 1503 and dead on 11 October 1542, stands at the beginning of the English Renaissance lyric. He was not the first English poet to write about love, loss, faith, or fortune, but he altered the sound, scale, and inwardness of English poetry. In his hands, verse became a place where private desire could collide with public danger, where a courtier could confess exhaustion without naming its c…

“Heavens! that a man cannot repent him of his sins without the Pope's leave.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair

In time

Richard Tottel
Sir Thomas Wyatt
1503 1593
They overlapped for 15 years (1528–1542). When Richard Tottel was born, Sir Thomas Wyatt was about 25. Richard Tottel was about 14 when Sir Thomas Wyatt died.

On the map

About 289 km separate Exeter, Devon, England from Allington Castle, Kent, England. 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

court

Richard Tottel: exeter, tottel’s miscellany, songes and sonettes, henry howard, thomas wyatt, william middleton, fleet street, stationers’ company. Sir Thomas Wyatt: english renaissance lyric, henry viii, courtier, diplomat, ambassador, whoso list to hunt, anne boleyn, petrarchan sonnet.

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 Louer Refused of His Loue Imbraceth Death
Richard Tottel
87% beloved, love, desire
Compare
I Find No Peace
Sir Thomas Wyatt
The Louer Refused of His Loue Imbraceth Death
Richard Tottel
78% beloved, love
Compare
Your Looks so Often Cast
Sir Thomas Wyatt

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Richard Tottel: Despair, Sorrow, Longing. Sir Thomas Wyatt: Longing, Sorrow, Despair.

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