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 Bunyan John Bunyan

Poet B

Edward Herbert Edward Herbert
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 62% Blended 62%
Swap sides Another related pair
John Bunyan

John Bunyan

November 1628 – 31 August 1688 (~60)
1 live poem · English

John Bunyan, baptized on 30 November 1628 and dead on 31 August 1688, rose from the working life of rural Bedfordshire to become one of the most influential English religious writers of all time. Though he is best known as the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, a book whose characters and phrases entered the language of generations of readers, Bunyan was also a preacher, controversialist, autobiographer, pastor, poet,…

“Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Renaissance Poets, Restoration Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Joy
Listen Timeline Affinities
Edward Herbert

Edward Herbert

3 March 1583 – 20 August 1648 (~65)
1 live poem · English

Edward Herbert, first Baron Herbert of Cherbury, was born on 3 March 1583 at Eyton-on-Severn, near Wroxeter in Shropshire, and died in London on 20 August 1648. He belonged to a generation shaped by the last brilliance of the Renaissance and the mounting tensions that would fracture the Stuart kingdoms in civil war. Soldier, courtier, ambassador, historian, musician, autobiographer, philosopher, and poet, he seems at…

“There is one supreme God.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

John Bunyan
Edward Herbert
1583 1688
They overlapped for 21 years (1628–1648). When John Bunyan was born, Edward Herbert was about 45. John Bunyan was about 20 when Edward Herbert died.
John Bunyan in history Edward Herbert in history Years they were given

On the map

About 159 km separate Elstow, Bedfordshire, England from Eyton-on-Severn, Shropshire, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

John Bunyan

Edward Herbert

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

life

John Bunyan only

bunyan spiritual self humility divine power pilgrimage

Edward Herbert only

eternity insomnia ticking mechanical fate

From the biographies

religious

John Bunyan: bedfordshire, elstow, the pilgrim’s progress, grace abounding to the chief of sinners, english civil war, john gifford, tinker, baptism by immersion. Edward Herbert: eyton-on-severn, wroxeter, shropshire, mary herbert, george herbert, john donne, ben jonson, lord herbert of cherbury's lute-book.

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.

He that is down needs fear no fall
John Bunyan
71% life
Compare
To His Watch, When He Could Not Sleep
Edward Herbert

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1628 Death by Violence
1628 Education at St Andrews University
1628 William Harvey Publishes 'De Motu Cordis'
1634 Publication of 'Castara'
1640 Publication of 'Poems' Collection
1642 English Civil War Begins
1644 The Qing capture Beijing after the Ming collapse
1648 Publication of 'Hesperides'

John Bunyan

1635 John Bunyan's Education at Local Grammar School
1644 John Bunyan's Military Service
1649 John Bunyan's Marriage to Mary
1660 John Bunyan's First Imprisonment
1666 John Bunyan's Publication of Grace Abounding
1672 John Bunyan's Release from Prison
1685 John Bunyan's Final Years in Bedford
1688 John Bunyan's Death

Edward Herbert

1596 Education at University College, Oxford
1599 Marriage of Edward Herbert
1606 Death of Edward Herbert's Mother
1620 Friendship with John Donne
1624 Publication of 'De Veritate'
1624 Publication of 'The Temple of Truth'
1625 Appointment as a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber
1641 Publication of 'The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury'

Emotional landscapes

John Bunyan: Spirituality, Peace, Joy. Edward Herbert: Sorrow, Spirituality, Wonder.

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