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

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Poet B

George Henry Boker George Henry Boker
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 65% Blended 65%
Swap sides Another related pair
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

8 December 1832 – 26 April 1910 (~78)
1 live poem · Norwegian

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson was born on 8 December 1832 in Kvikne, a mountain district in what is now Innlandet, Norway, and died on 26 April 1910 in Paris. During his long life he became, by turns and often simultaneously, a novelist, poet, dramatist, editor, theatre director, lecturer, political agitator, public moralist, farmer, husband, father, and international advocate for national self-determination. Few w…

“I respect no grammatical Norwegian; I speak chest-Norwegian! It must flow straight out of the chest of the one who feels poetically.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Dramatic Poets, Hymn Writers, Nature Poets, Political Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities
George Henry Boker

George Henry Boker

6 October 1823 – 2 January 1890 (~67)
2 live poems · English

In the glittering literary salons of nineteenth-century Philadelphia, where gas lamps cast their warm glow over earnest conversations about poetry and politics, one figure stood at the intersection of art and public service with uncommon grace. George Henry Boker was born on October 6, 1823, into a world of privilege and promise that would shape his destiny as one of America's most accomplished—if underappreciated—po…

“We count the myriads of men that are and have been, by millions; we count the poets, as we pick out planets among the stars, singly and far apart. What a wonderful, what a holy gift is this Poetry.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Dramatic Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Symbolist Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Fear
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
George Henry Boker
1823 1910
They overlapped for 59 years (1832–1890). When Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson was born, George Henry Boker was about 9. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson was about 58 when George Henry Boker died.
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in history George Henry Boker in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,921 km separate Kvikne, Norway from Camden, New Jersey, USA. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

George Henry Boker

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.

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

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson only

princess horn sound silence longing yearning music heart bjørnson

George Henry Boker only

death soldier dirge dead life philosophical shark ship sailor body sick world

From the biographies

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson: kvikne, ja, vi elsker dette landet, synnøve solbakken, four greats, karoline reimers, norwegian theatre, mellem slagene, sigurd slembe. George Henry Boker: philadelphia, the book of the dead, the lessons of life, calaynos, francesca da rimini, bayard taylor, richard henry stoddard, union league club.

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 Princess
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
62%
Compare
Dirge for a Soldier
George Henry Boker
The Princess
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
51%
Compare
The Shark
George Henry Boker

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'
1836 Publication of 'Nature'
1837 Publication of 'Life of Sir Walter Scott'
1842 First Pale Lager Brewed in Pilsen
1845 Great Famine in Ireland (1845)
1845 The Outbreak of the Irish Potato Famine
1845 Thoreau's Walden Experiment Begins

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

1846 Education at Molde School
1850 Move to Christiania (Oslo)
1857 First Major Publication: 'Synnøve Solbakken'
1858 Marriage to Karoline Bjørnson
1860 Involvement in Norwegian Nationalism
1860 Publication of 'Arne' and 'The Fisherman'
1880 Publication of 'The Last of the Vikings'
1903 Nobel Prize in Literature

George Henry Boker

1840 Education at the University of Pennsylvania
1851 Publication of 'The Betrothed'
1861 Involvement in the Civil War
1865 Friendship with Walt Whitman
1869 Appointment as U.S. Minister to Russia
1882 Publication of 'The Book of the Dead'
1886 Publication of 'The Poet and the Critic'
1888 Death of his wife, Mary E. Boker

Emotional landscapes

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness. George Henry Boker: Sorrow, Despair, Fear.

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