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

T. E. Brown T. E. Brown

Poet B

William Lisle Bowles William Lisle Bowles
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 86% Blended 79%
Swap sides Another related pair
T. E. Brown

T. E. Brown

5 May 1830 – 29 October 1897 (~67)
3 live poems · English

In the pantheon of Victorian literature, Thomas Edward Brown occupies a unique position—a poet who straddled two worlds with remarkable grace and authenticity. Born on the Isle of Man in 1830 and dying there in 1897, Brown spent his life navigating between the intimate, Celtic traditions of his homeland and the broader currents of English literary culture. His poetry, written primarily in the Manx dialect, captured t…

“I grow old naturally, comfortably, easily, and with assent and consent. It is the strugglers, the rebels, the miserables who can do nothing generously, that spoil themselves.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Scottish Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities
William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles

24 September 1762 – 7 April 1850 (~88)
8 live poems · English

William Lisle Bowles (September 24, 1762 - April 7, 1850) stands as one of the more intriguing transitional figures in English literature, occupying the liminal space between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Though his reputation has diminished considerably over the centuries, Bowles's influence on major Romantic poets—particularly Samuel Taylor Coleridge—establishes him as a crucial bridge between literary eras. As a…

“This may serve in some measure to obviate the common remark on melancholy poetry, that it has been very often gravely composed, when possibly the heart of the writer had very little share in the distress he chose to describe.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

T. E. Brown
William Lisle Bowles
1762 1897
They overlapped for 21 years (1830–1850). When T. E. Brown was born, William Lisle Bowles was about 68. T. E. Brown was about 20 when William Lisle Bowles died.
T. E. Brown in history William Lisle Bowles in history Years they were given

On the map

About 319 km separate Douglas, Isle of Man from King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, England.

T. E. Brown

William Lisle Bowles

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

nature

T. E. Brown only

divine return mother stream stillness leap hills embrace source dhoon life motion

William Lisle Bowles only

romantic world sonnet memory love cliffs dover wanderer heart inner friend city

From the biographies

T. E. Brown: isle of man, manx dialect, robert brown, dorothy thompson brown, betsy lee, fo'c's'le yarns, the doctor and other poems, old john and other poems. William Lisle Bowles: king's sutton, northamptonshire, samuel taylor coleridge, fourteen sonnets, natural imagery, romanticism, dr. joseph warton, the fair fidelia.

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 Dhoon
T. E. Brown
79% nature
Compare
Dover Cliffs
William Lisle Bowles
The Dhoon
T. E. Brown
75% nature
Compare
To a Friend
William Lisle Bowles
The Dhoon
T. E. Brown
74% nature
Compare
Oh! when 'tis summer weather
William Lisle Bowles
Life
T. E. Brown
74%
Compare
To a Friend
William Lisle Bowles
The Dhoon
T. E. Brown
74%
Compare
Fairy Sketch
William Lisle Bowles
Planting
T. E. Brown
74%
Compare
Dover Cliffs
William Lisle Bowles

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1830 Indian Removal Act of 1830
1831 Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction in London
1831 HMS Beagle Begins Darwin's Survey Voyage
1831 Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction
1831 Publication of 'Canti'
1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'
1836 Publication of 'Nature'

T. E. Brown

1849 Education at St. John's College, Cambridge
1855 Ordination as a Methodist Minister
1865 Publication of 'The Manxman'
1875 Relocation to Liverpool for Teaching
1880 Publication of 'The Poetical Works of T. E. Brown'
1880 Return to the Isle of Man
1884 Publication of 'The Last of the Old School'
1897 Final Years and Legacy

William Lisle Bowles

1773 Death of his Mother
1781 Education at Oxford University
1788 Ordination as a Clergyman
1789 Publication of 'Sonnets' Collection
1797 Friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1808 Publication of 'The Grave' Poem
1820 Relocation to Bristol
1835 Publication of 'The Spirit of Poetry'

Emotional landscapes

T. E. Brown: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder. William Lisle Bowles: Longing, Sorrow, Spirituality.

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