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

William Habington William Habington

Poet B

Richard Barnefield Richard Barnefield
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 72% Blended 72%
Swap sides Another related pair
William Habington

William Habington

4 November 1605 – 30 November 1654 (~49)
2 live poems · English

In the rich tapestry of seventeenth-century English poetry, William Habington occupies a distinctive position—neither as celebrated as John Donne nor as experimental as George Herbert, yet possessing a unique voice that championed marital love and spiritual devotion with rare sincerity. His story unfolds against the backdrop of religious persecution, political upheaval, and the flowering of Caroline literature, revea…

“By it we may discover the print which former ages made, and treading that, know how to avoid the byways of error and misfortune.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness
Richard Barnefield

Richard Barnefield

29 June 1574 – 1627 (~53)
1 live poem · English

Richard Barnefield, baptized on 29 June 1574 and buried in 1627, occupies a small but remarkably provocative place in the history of English Renaissance poetry. He was not among the most prolific writers of the Elizabethan age, nor did he sustain a public literary career over decades as Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, or William Shakespeare did. Yet the poems he published during a brief period in the 1590s have continued…

“This protestation (I hope) will satisfie th' indifferent: and as for them that are maliciously enuious, as I cannot, so I care not to please.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Elizabethan Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets
Emotional landscape: Sensuality, Longing, Wonder

In time

William Habington
Richard Barnefield
1574 1654
They overlapped for 23 years (1605–1627). When William Habington was born, Richard Barnefield was about 31. William Habington was about 22 when Richard Barnefield died.

On the map

About 66 km separate Hindlip Hall, Worcestershire, England from Norbury, Staffordshire, England. Both have ground in England.

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

William Habington only

Richard Barnefield only

From the biographies

William Habington: hindlip hall, worcestershire, catholic recusancy, thomas habington, mary queen of scots, saint-omer, castara, lucy herbert. Richard Barnefield: staffordshire, norbury, the affectionate shepherd, cynthia, the legend of cassandra, oxford, brasnose college, male beauty.

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.

To Roses in the Bosome of Castara
William Habington
83% beauty, love, beloved
Compare
Sonnet 17
Richard Barnefield
Of his being in Love
William Habington
81% love, beloved
Compare
Sonnet 17
Richard Barnefield

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

William Habington: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness. Richard Barnefield: Sensuality, Longing, Wonder.

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