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.

After the death of my mother, 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.

My wife and I are simplifying our days. The server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the quieter life we 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

Edmund Clarence Stedman Edmund Clarence Stedman

Poet B

Nixon Waterman Nixon Waterman
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 72% Poems 83% Blended 77%
Swap sides Another related pair
Edmund Clarence Stedman

Edmund Clarence Stedman

8 October 1833 – 18 January 1908 (~75)
3 live poems · English

In the heart of nineteenth-century American letters stands a figure who defied easy categorization, a man who straddled two seemingly incompatible worlds with remarkable grace. Edmund Clarence Stedman, born on October 8, 1833, in Hartford, Connecticut, would become known as the "Bard of Wall Street," a sobriquet that captured both the paradox and the peculiar achievement of his life. For forty-five years, he navigate…

“A critic must accept what is best in a poet, and thus become his best encourager.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Longing
Nixon Waterman

Nixon Waterman

12 November 1859 – 1 September 1944 (~85)
3 live poems · English

In the golden age of American newspaper poetry, when verses appeared on editorial pages alongside the day's news and readers clipped favorite stanzas to paste in scrapbooks, few voices resonated more warmly with the reading public than that of Nixon Waterman. Born on November 12, 1859, in the small prairie town of Newark, Illinois, Waterman would rise from humble agricultural beginnings to become one of the most wide…

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Children's Verse, Edwardian Poets, Light Verse Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair

In time

Edmund Clarence Stedman
Nixon Waterman
1833 1944
They overlapped for 50 years (1859–1908). When Nixon Waterman was born, Edmund Clarence Stedman was about 26. Nixon Waterman was about 49 when Edmund Clarence Stedman died.

On the map

About 1,319 km separate Hartford, Connecticut, USA from Newark, Illinois, USA. Shared ground: United States.

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

Edmund Clarence Stedman: hartford, bard of wall street, elizabeth clementine stedman, new york city, the norwich tribune, how old brown took harper's ferry, pan in wall street, yale university. Nixon Waterman: newark, illinois, creston, iowa, chicago herald, small change, a rose to the living, opinion columns, ben king's verse, some home-made poems.

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 Sad Bridal
Edmund Clarence Stedman
76% life, marriage
Compare
An Idol of Clay
Nixon Waterman
The Sad Bridal
Edmund Clarence Stedman
71% love, life
Compare
The Rose and the Lily
Nixon Waterman
Surf
Edmund Clarence Stedman
70% love
Compare
The Rose and the Lily
Nixon Waterman
Surf
Edmund Clarence Stedman
68% world
Compare
An Idol of Clay
Nixon Waterman
Custer
Edmund Clarence Stedman
67%
Compare
An Idol of Clay
Nixon Waterman
Surf
Edmund Clarence Stedman
67%
Compare
To-day
Nixon Waterman

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Edmund Clarence Stedman: Sorrow, Tenderness, Longing. Nixon Waterman: Longing, Sorrow, Despair.

Skip to main content