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.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this 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

John McCrae John McCrae

Poet B

Shaemas O'Sheel Shaemas O'Sheel
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 66% Blended 66%
Swap sides Another related pair
John McCrae

John McCrae

30 November 1872 – 28 January 1918 (~46)
1 live poem · English

John McCrae was born on 30 November 1872 in Guelph, Ontario, then a prosperous and growing town in Canada’s province of Ontario. He died on 28 January 1918 at Wimereux, France, before the war that made his name famous had ended. In the short span between those dates, he became several things at once: physician, medical teacher, pathologist, soldier, officer, friend, and poet. To later generations he is overwhelmingly…

“I am really rather afraid, but more afraid to stay at home with my conscience.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities
Shaemas O'Sheel

Shaemas O'Sheel

12 January 1886 – 2 April 1954 (~68)
1 live poem · English

In the early decades of the twentieth century, when American poetry was undergoing one of its most dramatic transformations, a young man of Irish heritage was crafting verses that sought to bridge the ancient traditions of Celtic literature with the modern sensibilities of his adopted homeland. Shaemas O'Sheel, born James Shields in New York City on January 12, 1886, would become one of the more intriguing yet ultima…

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Imagist Poets, Irish Poets, Modernist Poets, Political Poets
Emotional landscape: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

John McCrae
Shaemas O'Sheel
1872 1954
They overlapped for 33 years (1886–1918). When Shaemas O'Sheel was born, John McCrae was about 14. Shaemas O'Sheel was about 32 when John McCrae died.
John McCrae in history Shaemas O'Sheel in history Years they were given

On the map

About 603 km separate Guelph, Ontario, Canada from New York City, New York, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

John McCrae

Shaemas O'Sheel

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.

John McCrae only

dead world death life crosses flanders fields

Shaemas O'Sheel only

warriors battle doubt conscience ethical inner

From the biographies

John McCrae: guelph, ontario, in flanders fields, second boer war, canadian field artillery, alexis helmer, victorian ideals, royal victoria hospital. Shaemas O'Sheel: new york city, irish heritage, they went forth to battle, but they always fell, jealous of dead leaves, irish literary revival, w.b. yeats, harriet monroe, socialism.

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.

In Flanders Fields
John McCrae
76%
Compare
They Went Forth to Battle, but They Always Fell
Shaemas O'Sheel

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1886 Coca-Cola invented by John Pemberton in Atlanta
1886 Discovery of Gold on the Witwatersrand Sparks Johannesburg Boom
1886 Emily Dickinson's Posthumous Discovery by Sister Lavinia
1891 Conversion to Roman Catholicism
1892 Opening of Ellis Island
1892 Valéry undergoes the Genoa crisis
1893 Co-founding of the Gaelic League
1893 Delivery of 'The Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland' Speech

John McCrae

1890 Graduation from Guelph Collegiate Institute
1898 Medical Degree from University of Toronto
1899 Service in the Second Boer War
1900 Pathology Studies at McGill University
1911 Publication of First Collection of Poetry
1914 Appointment as Medical Officer in WWI
1918 Final Days in France
1918 Illness and Hospitalization

Shaemas O'Sheel

1904 Education at New York University
1910 Marriage to Mary O'Sheel
1916 First Major Publication: 'The Harp and the Shadow'
1920 Relocation to Dublin
1925 Publication of 'Songs of the Irish Diaspora'
1930 Return to New York City
1935 Publication of 'Echoes of the Past'
1952 Final Publication: 'The Last Verses'

Emotional landscapes

John McCrae: Sorrow, Despair, Longing. Shaemas O'Sheel: Despair, Sorrow, Spirituality.

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