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

Ernest Dowson Ernest Dowson

Poet B

Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne
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 90% Blended 80%
Swap sides Another related pair
Ernest Dowson

Ernest Dowson

2 August 1867 – 23 February 1900 (~33)
18 live poems · English

In the fading light of Victorian England, when the certainties of empire began to crack and a fin-de-siècle weariness settled over the literary world, Ernest Christopher Dowson emerged as one of the most hauntingly beautiful voices of his generation. His brief, tragic life—spanning a mere thirty-two years from 1867 to 1900—produced poetry of such delicate melancholy and exquisite craftsmanship that it continues to ca…

“I have begun to accept my limitations and will not pay you the sorry compliment of returning verses for your poem.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Decadent Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne

5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909 (~72)
14 live poems · English

Algernon Charles Swinburne was born on 5 April 1837 at 7 Chester Street, Grosvenor Place, London, into a family whose rank, traditions, and geography would all enter his imagination. He was the eldest surviving child of Captain, later Admiral, Charles Henry Swinburne and Lady Jane Henrietta Ashburnham, daughter of the third Earl of Ashburnham. His inheritance was aristocratic, military, and literary. The Swinburnes p…

“We might even, in time, come to think it possible to enjoy the naked beauty of a statue or a picture without any virtuous vision behind it of a filthy fancy; which would be immoral.”

Neighbourhood: Decadent Poets, Dramatic Poets, Political Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair

In time

Ernest Dowson
Algernon Charles Swinburne
1837 1909
They overlapped for 34 years (1867–1900). When Ernest Dowson was born, Algernon Charles Swinburne was about 30. Algernon Charles Swinburne was about 63 when Ernest Dowson died.

On the map

About 89 km separate Canterbury, Kent, England from Grosvenor Place, London, 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

Ernest Dowson only

Algernon Charles Swinburne only

From the biographies

french london

Ernest Dowson: lee, kent, rhymers' club, william butler yeats, adelaide foltinowicz, verses, non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno cynarae, vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam, decadent movement. Algernon Charles Swinburne: london, isle of wight, northumberland, captain charles henry swinburne, lady jane henrietta ashburnham, atalanta in calydon, poems and ballads, percy bysshe shelley.

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.

Vitae Summa Brevis
Ernest Dowson
83% life, death, love
Compare
Before Sunset
Algernon Charles Swinburne
In Tempore Senectutis
Ernest Dowson
82% love, life
Compare
Before Sunset
Algernon Charles Swinburne
In Tempore Senectutis
Ernest Dowson
82% love, beloved
Compare
A Leave-Taking
Algernon Charles Swinburne
To a Lost Love
Ernest Dowson
82% love
Compare
Before Parting
Algernon Charles Swinburne
In Tempore Senectutis
Ernest Dowson
82% love, heart
Compare
In Time of Mourning
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Exchanges
Ernest Dowson
82% beloved, love
Compare
A Leave-Taking
Algernon Charles Swinburne

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Ernest Dowson: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. Algernon Charles Swinburne: Longing, Sorrow, Despair.

Compare their emotional landscapes
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