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.

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

Thomas Morley Thomas Morley

Poet B

Thomas Bateson Thomas Bateson
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 81% Poems 80% Blended 81%
Swap sides Another related pair
Thomas Morley

Thomas Morley

c. 1557 – October 1602 (~45)
2 live poems · English

In the golden twilight of Elizabeth I's reign, when England's cultural confidence soared as high as her naval ambitions, there emerged a composer whose melodies would capture the very essence of Renaissance joy and melancholy. Thomas Morley, born around 1557 in the bustling city of Norwich, would become the architect of England's madrigal tradition and one of the most influential musicians of his generation. His life…

“If therefore you will compose in this kind, you must possess yourself with an amorous humour (for in no composition shall you prove admirable except you put on and possess yourself wholly with that vein wherein you compose).”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Sensuality, Irony, Joy
Thomas Bateson

Thomas Bateson

c. 1575 – March 1630 (~55)
2 live poems · English

In the golden twilight of the English Renaissance, when madrigals flourished in the courts and cathedrals of England and Ireland, few composers demonstrated such exquisite taste in wedding poetry to music as Thomas Bateson. Born around 1575 in the rolling countryside of Cheshire, this Anglo-Irish composer would become one of the most significant figures of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean musical landscape, le…

“But whatsoever they are, yours they are, and for you only they were made. It was your good countenance that did encourage me to this; your love to music doth not only challenge it of me, but even the uttermost that music's art can afford; which if it were in me, I would most willingly offer to you.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness

In time

Thomas Morley
Thomas Bateson
1557 1630
They overlapped for 28 years (1575–1602). When Thomas Bateson was born, Thomas Morley was about 18. Thomas Bateson was about 27 when Thomas Morley died.

On the map

About 261 km separate Norwich, England from Cheshire, 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.

No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.

From the biographies

madrigal tradition music madrigals composer

Thomas Morley: norwich, william byrd, canzonets to three voices, madrigals to four voices, april is in my mistress' face, balletts to five voices, now is the month of maying, st. paul's cathedral. Thomas Bateson: cheshire, anglo-irish, first set of english madrigals, second set of english madrigals, o'rianna's farewell, thomas morley, trinity college dublin, holy, lord god almighty.

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.

Ladies, you see time flieth
Thomas Morley
69%
Compare
I heard a noise
Thomas Bateson
Will you buy a fine dog?
Thomas Morley
64%
Compare
I heard a noise
Thomas Bateson

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Thomas Morley: Sensuality, Irony, Joy. Thomas Bateson: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness.

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