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

Thomas, Lord Vaux Thomas, Lord Vaux

Poet B

Richard Tottel Richard Tottel
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 76% Poems 90% Blended 82%
Swap sides Another related pair
Thomas, Lord Vaux

Thomas, Lord Vaux

25 April 1509 – c. October 1556 (~47)
2 live poems · English

In the grand tapestry of English Renaissance poetry, few figures occupy such a fascinating yet underexplored position as Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowden. Born into privilege and immersed in the turbulent court life of Henry VIII, Vaux emerged as one of the early Tudor poets whose work would bridge the medieval and modern worlds of English verse. His life, spanning the transformative years from 1509 to 1556,…

“I humbly require you to be good unto me. I have as I perceive a great many more foes than friends, and am like, your goodness reserved, to be trodden under the feet and to be made a slave.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Elizabethan Poets, Love Poets, Medieval Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Longing
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…

“And I exhort the vnlearned, by reding to learne to be more skilfull, and to purge that swinelike grossenesse, that maketh the swete maierome not to smell to their delight.”

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

In time

Thomas, Lord Vaux
Richard Tottel
1509 1593
They overlapped for 29 years (1528–1556). When Richard Tottel was born, Thomas, Lord Vaux was about 19. Richard Tottel was about 28 when Thomas, Lord Vaux died.

On the map

About 248 km separate Harrowden, Northamptonshire, England from Exeter, Devon, 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

Thomas, Lord Vaux: northamptonshire, henry viii, catherine parr, cambridge university, cardinal thomas wolsey, francis i, knight of the bath, isle of jersey. Richard Tottel: exeter, tottel’s miscellany, songes and sonettes, henry howard, thomas wyatt, william middleton, fleet street, stationers’ company.

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 Aged Lover Renounceth Love
Thomas, Lord Vaux
83% death, love, lover
Compare
The Louer Refused of His Loue Imbraceth Death
Richard Tottel

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Thomas, Lord Vaux: Despair, Sorrow, Longing. Richard Tottel: Despair, Sorrow, Longing.

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