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 Byrd William Byrd

Poet B

Thomas Tomkins Thomas Tomkins
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 74% Poems 84% Blended 78%
Swap sides Another related pair
William Byrd

William Byrd

c. 1540 – 4 July 1623 (~83)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of English Renaissance composers, William Byrd stands as a towering figure whose musical genius transcended the turbulent religious and political landscape of his era. Born around 1540 and living until 1623, Byrd's extraordinary eighty-three-year lifespan encompassed the reigns of four monarchs and witnessed the profound transformation of English musical culture from medieval traditions to the floweri…

“The natural inclination and love to the art of music, wherein I have spent the better part of mine age, have been so powerful in me, that even in my old years which are desirous of rest, I cannot contain myself from taking some pains therein.”

Neighbourhood: Elizabethan Poets, Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities
Thomas Tomkins

Thomas Tomkins

1572 – 9 June 1656 (~84)
2 live poems · English

In the twilight of the English Renaissance, as the sun dipped behind the hills of a vanishing golden age, there stood a solitary figure whose music shimmered with the last glow of that era’s brilliance — Thomas Tomkins, composer, organist, and quiet poet of sound. Born in 1572, in the cathedral town of St. David’s, Wales, and passing into silence in 1656, in the shadowed aftermath of civil war and Puritan upheaval, T…

“If that stumble you: do not rest the quaver. But make the quaver a crotchet”

Neighbourhood: Lute-Song Composers
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Joy
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

William Byrd
Thomas Tomkins
1540 1656
They overlapped for 52 years (1572–1623). When Thomas Tomkins was born, William Byrd was about 32. Thomas Tomkins was about 51 when William Byrd died.
William Byrd in history Thomas Tomkins in history Years they were given

On the map

About 356 km separate London, England from St. David's, Pembrokeshire, Wales. Both have ground in England.

William Byrd

Thomas Tomkins

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

love music

William Byrd only

philosophical orpheus byrd grief voice expressive

Thomas Tomkins only

singing lover tears sorrow dance

From the biographies

english renaissance music composer

William Byrd: english renaissance, thomas tallis, lincoln cathedral, queen elizabeth i, catholicism, recusancy, when younglings first, is love a boy?. Thomas Tomkins: st. david's, wales, william byrd, gloucester cathedral, chapel royal, o sing unto the lord a new song, the triumphs of oriana, a sad pavan for these distracted times.

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.

Come woeful Orpheus
William Byrd
80% music
Compare
Weep no more, thou sorry boy
Thomas Tomkins
Come woeful Orpheus
William Byrd
77% music
Compare
Too much I once lamented
Thomas Tomkins
Is Love a boy?
William Byrd
74% love
Compare
Weep no more, thou sorry boy
Thomas Tomkins
Is Love a boy?
William Byrd
70% love
Compare
Too much I once lamented
Thomas Tomkins

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1592 Imprisonment for Religious Activities
1595 Execution at Tyburn
1600 English East India Company Chartered
1600 William Gilbert publishes De Magnete and coins electricus
1603 Imprisonment in the Tower of London
1605 Cervantes Publishes Don Quixote Featuring the Windmill Combat Scene
1605 Publication of 'Don Quixote' Part I
1615 Cervantes publishes the second part of Don Quixote

William Byrd

1552 William Byrd's Education at St. Paul's Cathedral
1563 Appointment as Organist of Lincoln Cathedral
1568 Marriage to Juliana Byrd
1570 Friendship with Thomas Tallis
1588 Publication of 'Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs of Sadness and Pietie'
1604 Relocation to Stondon Massey
1605 Publication of 'Gradualia'
1606 Establishment of a Catholic Chapel in London

Thomas Tomkins

1585 Education and Musical Training in St. David's
1596 Appointment as Organist at St. David's Cathedral
1603 Marriage to Mary Williams
1605 Death of His First Child
1610 Move to London for Broader Opportunities
1622 Publication of 'The Songs of Thomas Tomkins'
1630 Recognition by the Royal Court
1650 Final Years in Pembrokeshire

Emotional landscapes

William Byrd: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. Thomas Tomkins: Sorrow, Tenderness, Joy.

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