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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I 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

Richard Rowlands Richard Rowlands

Poet B

George Wither George Wither
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 70% Blended 70%
Swap sides Another related pair
Richard Rowlands

Richard Rowlands

c. 1550 – c. 1640 (~90)
1 live poem · English

Richard Rowlands, better known to history as Richard Verstegan or Verstegen, was born in London about 1550 and died in Antwerp in 1640. He belongs to that unusually rich category of Renaissance figures whose lives resist simple professional labels. He was a poet, translator, engraver, publisher, controversialist, antiquary, journalist, intelligence agent, and committed Catholic exile. He wrote in English, Latin, Dutc…

“Holland is as fertile in sects as Italy is in mushrooms: new doctrines sprout overnight from the dreams of men.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Elizabethan Poets, Hymn Writers, Metaphysical Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Tenderness, Joy, Peace
Listen Timeline Affinities
George Wither

George Wither

11 June 1588 – 2 May 1667 (~79)
1 live poem · English

George Wither was born on 11 June 1588 at Bentworth, near Alton in Hampshire, and died on 2 May 1667 in London. His long life stretched across one of the most violently transformative periods in English history: the last years of Elizabeth I, the reigns of James I and Charles I, the Civil Wars, the execution of a king, the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and the Restoration of Charles II. Few English poets lived so fu…

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Richard Rowlands
George Wither
1550 1667
They overlapped for 53 years (1588–1640). When George Wither was born, Richard Rowlands was about 38. George Wither was about 52 when Richard Rowlands died.
Richard Rowlands in history George Wither in history Years they were given

On the map

About 87 km separate East London, England from Bentworth, Hampshire, England. Both have ground in London and England.

Richard Rowlands

George Wither

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

love

Richard Rowlands only

rowlands lullaby mother christ infant divine voice

George Wither only

wither loved lass nostalgia jacobean

From the biographies

london religious

Richard Rowlands: london, antwerp, edmund campion, theatrum crudelitatum, catholic exile, christ church oxford, goldsmiths' company, william allen. George Wither: bentworth, hampshire, prince henry frederick, abuses stript and whipt, the shepherd's hunting, hymnes and songs of the church, william browne, magdalen college.

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.

Lullaby
Richard Rowlands
69% love
Compare
I Loved a Lass
George Wither

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1592 Imprisonment for Religious Activities
1595 Execution at Tyburn
1600 English East India Company Chartered
1600 William Gilbert publishes De Magnete and coins electricus
1603 Imprisonment in the Tower of London
1605 Cervantes Publishes Don Quixote Featuring the Windmill Combat Scene
1605 Publication of 'Don Quixote' Part I
1615 Cervantes publishes the second part of Don Quixote

Richard Rowlands

1580 Education at Christ Church, Oxford
1581 Exile due to Religious Beliefs
1592 Publication of 'The First Part of the History of the Life of the Most Noble and Renowned Sir Philip Sidney'
1595 Friendship with Other Exiled Poets
1605 Imprisonment in England
1612 Publication of 'The Second Part of the History of the Life of the Most Noble and Renowned Sir Philip Sidney'
1615 Patronage from the Earl of Southampton
1620 Publication of 'The Life of Sir Philip Sidney'

George Wither

1613 Publication of 'Abuses Stript and Whipt'
1615 Legal Studies at Lincoln's Inn
1615 Publication of 'The Shepherd's Hunting'
1620 Marriage to Anne Wither
1623 Publication of 'The Hymns and Songs of the Church'
1631 Imprisonment for Political Views
1653 Publication of 'The Compleat Angler'

Emotional landscapes

Richard Rowlands: Tenderness, Joy, Peace. George Wither: Sorrow, Longing, Despair.

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