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

Lydia Huntley Sigourney Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Poet B

Achsa White Sprague Achsa White Sprague
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 80% Blended 80%
Swap sides Another related pair
Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

1 September 1791 – 10 June 1865 (~74)
2 live poems · English

Lydia Huntley Sigourney, born Lydia Howard Huntley on 1 September 1791 in Norwich, Connecticut, became one of the most widely read, industrious, and culturally influential American writers of the nineteenth century. During the height of her career, her poems were printed in newspapers and magazines, memorized by schoolchildren, recited at funerals, quoted from pulpits, and displayed in family albums. She wrote for re…

“If there is any kitchen in Parnassus, my Muse has surely officiated there as a woman of all work, and an aproned waiter.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Romantic Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality
Listen Timeline Affinities
Achsa White Sprague

Achsa White Sprague

17 November 1827 – 6 July 1862 (~35)
1 live poem · English

Achsa White Sprague was born on 17 November 1827 in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, a small mountain community whose austere beauty and close social fabric helped form her imagination. She died there on 6 July 1862, only thirty-four years old by the modern method of counting age, though many nineteenth-century notices described her as being in her thirty-fifth year. In the short interval between those dates, Sprague became…

“I am not afraid to die, for death to me is but the threshold of a higher, purer, and more glorious life.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Lydia Huntley Sigourney
Achsa White Sprague
1791 1865
They overlapped for 36 years (1827–1862). When Achsa White Sprague was born, Lydia Huntley Sigourney was about 36. Lydia Huntley Sigourney was about 71 when Achsa White Sprague died.
Lydia Huntley Sigourney in history Achsa White Sprague in history Years they were given

On the map

About 230 km separate Norwich, Connecticut, USA from Plymouth Notch, Vermont, USA. Shared ground: United States.

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

Achsa White Sprague

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.

Shared

death blood

Lydia Huntley Sigourney only

infant smile face eyes power life africa christian hope stars suffering african

Achsa White Sprague only

warrior body victory sword helmet dying command

From the biographies

women woman religious culture

Lydia Huntley Sigourney: norwich, connecticut, sweet singer of hartford, moral pieces, traits of the aborigines of america, indian names, charles sigourney, daniel wadsworth. Achsa White Sprague: plymouth notch, vermont, spiritualism, trance lecturer, rheumatic illness, calvin coolidge, antislavery, women's rights.

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.

Death of an Infant
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
74% death
Compare
The Dying Warrior
Achsa White Sprague
Christian Settlements in Africa
Lydia Huntley Sigourney
71% blood
Compare
The Dying Warrior
Achsa White Sprague

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1830 Indian Removal Act of 1830
1831 Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction in London
1831 HMS Beagle Begins Darwin's Survey Voyage
1831 Michael Faraday Discovers Electromagnetic Induction
1831 Publication of 'Canti'
1833 The Abolition of Slavery in the British Empire
1834 Publication of 'Philip van Artevelde'
1836 Publication of 'Nature'

Lydia Huntley Sigourney

1806 Education and Early Literary Influences of Sigourney
1819 Marriage to Charles Sigourney
1820 Publication of First Book of Poems
1833 Publication of 'Letters to Young Ladies'
1835 Death of Her Daughter Elizabeth
1845 Publication of 'Poems for the Young'
1850 Recognition as a Prominent Poet
1860 Death of Charles Sigourney

Achsa White Sprague

1835 Education and Early Influences of Achsa White Sprague
1852 First Major Publication of Poetry
1853 Involvement in Spiritualism
1855 Lecturing on Women's Rights
1856 Publication of 'The Spirit World'
1858 Health Crisis and Reflection
1861 Participation in Spiritualist Conventions
1863 Posthumous Recognition and Legacy

Emotional landscapes

Lydia Huntley Sigourney: Sorrow, Despair, Spirituality. Achsa White Sprague: Sorrow, Despair, Longing.

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