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

James Graham James Graham

Poet B

John Sheffield John Sheffield
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 64% Poems 79% Blended 71%
Swap sides Another related pair
James Graham

James Graham

1612 – 21 May 1650 (~38)
2 live poems · English

James Graham, first Marquess of Montrose, was born in 1612 and died on 21 May 1650. He occupies an unusual place in British literary and political history: a Scottish aristocrat whose short life contained religious revolution, civil war, spectacular military success, exile, defeat, and execution; a Royalist commander remembered as “the Great Montrose”; and a poet whose surviving verses, though few, have remained memo…

“I am very willing to lay down my life, and I bless God that I have a clear conscience before him.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Fear
John Sheffield

John Sheffield

8 September 1647 – 24 February 1721 (~74)
2 live poems · English

John Sheffield, who became the first Duke of Buckingham and Normanby, lived from 8 September 1647 to 24 February 1721, though older records occasionally create uncertainty about dates because of the calendar conventions and genealogical habits of the period. He was a nobleman, naval officer, soldier, courtier, politician, patron, critic, playwright, memoirist, and poet. Such a catalogue of roles can make him seem les…

“Often for the king, always for the public good.”

Neighbourhood: Georgian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Love Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow

In time

James Graham
John Sheffield
1612 1721
They overlapped for 4 years (1647–1650). When John Sheffield was born, James Graham was about 35. John Sheffield was about 3 when James Graham died.

On the map

About 602 km separate House of Dun, Angus, Scotland from London, 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

James Graham: scottish aristocrat, covenanter, royalist commander, the great montrose, my dear and only love, wars of the three kingdoms, thirty years' war, magdalen carnegie. John Sheffield: first duke of buckingham, naval officer, battle of solebay, order of the garter, essay on satire, an essay upon poetry, restoration england, james duke of york.

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.

His Metrical Prayer: before Execution
James Graham
68% power
Compare
The Reconcilement
John Sheffield

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

James Graham: Sorrow, Despair, Fear. John Sheffield: Longing, Tenderness, Sorrow.

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