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.

After the death of my mother, 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.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we want.

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

A. A. Milne A. A. Milne

Poet B

Edward Lear Edward Lear
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 68% Poems 88% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
A. A. Milne

A. A. Milne

18 January 1882 – 31 January 1956 (~74)
67 live poems · English

Alan Alexander Milne was born in Kilburn, London, on 18 January 1882, into a household where education, discipline, and intellectual curiosity were daily realities. He was the youngest of three sons of John Vine Milne and Sarah Marie Heginbotham Milne. His father was the headmaster of Henley House School, a small independent school in Kilburn, and the school stood at the center of family life. The young Alan was educ…

“I suppose that every one of us hopes secretly for immortality; to leave, I mean, a name behind him which will live forever in this world.”

Neighbourhood: Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Joy, Wonder, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities
Edward Lear

Edward Lear

12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888 (~76)
8 live poems · English

Edward Lear was born on 12 May 1812 at Holloway, then a semi-rural northern suburb of London, and died at San Remo, Italy, on 29 January 1888. He is now cherished as one of the great makers of English literary nonsense: the author of “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Jumblies,” “The Dong with a Luminous Nose,” and hundreds of limericks populated by improbable old persons, birds, cats, Quangle Wangles, and creatures wh…

“Nonsense is the breath of my nostrils.”

Neighbourhood: Children's Verse, Light Verse Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Joy, Peace
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

A. A. Milne
Edward Lear
1812 1956
They overlapped for 7 years (1882–1888). When A. A. Milne was born, Edward Lear was about 70. A. A. Milne was about 6 when Edward Lear died.
A. A. Milne in history Edward Lear in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5 km separate Hampstead, London, England from Holloway, London, England. Both have ground in London.

A. A. Milne

Edward Lear

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

world imaginative life

A. A. Milne only

children childhood imagination self play social bear desire fantasy nature nursery water

Edward Lear only

nonsense journey tree jumblies adventure absurd recurring sieve green return delight wonder

From the biographies

social

A. A. Milne: kilburn, henley house school, h. g. wells, trinity college, granta, punch, winnie-the-pooh, christopher robin. Edward Lear: san remo, the owl and the pussycat, the jumblies, the dong with a luminous nose, nonsense poetry, chichester fortescue, franklin lushington, illustrations of the family of psittacidae.

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.

Hoppity
A. A. Milne
79% world, motion
Compare
The Duck and the Kangaroo
Edward Lear
The Three Foxes
A. A. Milne
78% world
Compare
The Table and the Chair
Edward Lear
Nursery Chairs
A. A. Milne
78% chair, world
Compare
The Table and the Chair
Edward Lear
Cherry Stones
A. A. Milne
78%
Compare
The Nutcrackers and the Sugar-Tongs
Edward Lear
The Three Foxes
A. A. Milne
78% world
Compare
The Duck and the Kangaroo
Edward Lear
Journey's End
A. A. Milne
78%
Compare
The Nutcrackers and the Sugar-Tongs
Edward Lear

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1882 Nietzsche Declares 'God is Dead'
1882 Robert Koch Discovers the Tuberculosis Bacillus
1883 Emil Christian Hansen Isolates a Pure Yeast Culture at Carlsberg
1883 Friedrich Nietzsche Publishes 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'
1883 Publication of 'Treasure Island'
1884 Oxford English Dictionary Begins Publication
1884 Publication of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'
1885 Pasteur Successfully Tests the Rabies Vaccine

A. A. Milne

1906 Milne Joins Punch as Assistant Editor
1915 Milne Enlists and Serves in World War I
1920 Birth of Son Christopher Robin Milne
1924 Publication of 'When We Were Very Young'
1925 Milne Purchases Cotchford Farm in Sussex
1926 Publication of 'Winnie-the-Pooh'
1927 Publication of 'Now We Are Six'
1928 Publication of 'The House at Pooh Corner'

Edward Lear

1830 First Published Work by Edward Lear
1832 Commission by the Earl of Derby
1846 Publication of 'A Book of Nonsense'
1848 Travel to Italy
1849 Friendship with Franklin Lushington Begins
1850 Friendship with Tennyson
1871 Publication of 'Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets'
1877 Publication of 'Laughable Lyrics'

Emotional landscapes

A. A. Milne: Joy, Wonder, Tenderness. Edward Lear: Wonder, Joy, Peace.

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