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

Nathaniel Parker Willis Nathaniel Parker Willis

Poet B

George Edward Woodberry George Edward Woodberry
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 73% Blended 73%
Swap sides Another related pair
Nathaniel Parker Willis

Nathaniel Parker Willis

20 January 1806 – 20 January 1867 (~61)
1 live poem · English

In the grand tapestry of 19th-century American literature, certain figures shine with the steady brilliance of established stars, while others flicker with a more complex, mercurial light. Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867) belongs decidedly to the latter category—a writer whose life and work embodied the tensions, aspirations, and contradictions of a young nation struggling to define its cultural identity. Neither…

“My veins are teeming with the quicksilver spirit which my mother gave me. Whatever I accomplish must be gained by ardor, and not by patience.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Romantic Poets, Transcendentalists, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Irony
Listen Timeline Affinities
George Edward Woodberry

George Edward Woodberry

12 May 1855 – 2 January 1930 (~75)
1 live poem · English

The Woodberrys—or Woodburys, as various spellings of the name exist—were an old New England family who had immigrated early in the colonial period and established deep roots along Massachusetts's North Shore. Since settlement took hold in Beverly and neighboring seaport towns, the family had been native to this maritime region, and many of Woodberry's forebears were sea captains and sailors. This ancestral connection…

“Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Nathaniel Parker Willis
George Edward Woodberry
1806 1930
They overlapped for 13 years (1855–1867). When George Edward Woodberry was born, Nathaniel Parker Willis was about 49. George Edward Woodberry was about 12 when Nathaniel Parker Willis died.
Nathaniel Parker Willis in history George Edward Woodberry in history Years they were given

On the map

About 133 km separate Portland, Maine, United States from Beverly, Massachusetts, USA. Both have ground in New York City and New York.

Nathaniel Parker Willis

George Edward Woodberry

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.

Nathaniel Parker Willis only

woman social honor women world beauty unseen spirits

George Edward Woodberry only

stars silence lament universe pain gulf soul

From the biographies

Nathaniel Parker Willis: portland, maine, fanny fern, sketches, unseen spirits, yale literary magazine, european correspondent, new york mirror, inklings of adventure. George Edward Woodberry: massachusetts, harvard college, edgar allan poe, the north shore watch, the nation, columbia university, comparative literature, philosophy.

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.

Unseen Spirits
Nathaniel Parker Willis
73%
Compare
A Lament
George Edward Woodberry

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1856 Invention of the Bessemer Process for Mass Steel Production
1856 Mauveine Synthetic Dye Invention
1856 Perkin's Accidental Discovery of Mauveine
1857 Pasteur Demonstrates the Biological Basis of Fermentation
1858 Publication of 'There is a Green Hill Far Away'
1858 Publication of Ionica
1859 Discovery of Oil at Drake Well Sparks Pennsylvania Petroleum Boom
1859 Publication of 'Adam Bede'

Nathaniel Parker Willis

1823 Education at Yale College
1828 First Major Publication: 'The Literary World'
1837 Marriage to Sarah E. H. Willis
1838 Publication of 'Pencilings'
1845 Relocation to Europe
1856 Death of His Wife, Sarah
1859 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of Nathaniel Parker Willis'
1867 Final Years and Legacy

George Edward Woodberry

1872 Graduation from Phillips Exeter Academy
1875 Return to Harvard College
1876 Contributions to the Atlantic Monthly
1877 Graduation from Harvard College
1885 Publication of 'The Life of Edgar Allan Poe'
1892 Appointment as Professor of English Literature
1920 Awarded the Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
1926 Publication of 'The Life of Edgar Allan Poe'

Emotional landscapes

Nathaniel Parker Willis: Despair, Sorrow, Irony. George Edward Woodberry: Despair, Sorrow, Longing.

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