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

King James Bible King James Bible

Poet B

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins
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 55% Poems 83% Blended 67%
Swap sides Another related pair
King James Bible

King James Bible

1611 – present
7 live poems · English

The King James Bible, more accurately called the King James Version or Authorized Version, does not have a birth and death date in the ordinary biographical sense, because it is neither a person nor the work of a solitary author. Yet it has a remarkably vivid life story. “Born” in print in 1611, during the reign of James VI and I (born June 19, 1566; died March 27, 1625), it emerged from religious conflict, royal cal…

“The very meanest translation of the Bible in English, set forth by men of our profession, containeth the word of God, nay, is the word of God.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder
Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889 (~45)
17 live poems · English

Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on July 28, 1844, in Stratford, Essex, which has since been absorbed into the bustling expanse of Greater London. He entered the world as the eldest of what would become nine children in a prosperous, artistic, and devout High Church Anglican family. His father, Manley Hopkins, was a successful marine insurance adjuster who also served as the Hawaiian consul-general in London and dabble…

“Nothing is so beautiful as spring.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing

In time

King James Bible
Gerard Manley Hopkins
1611 2026
They overlapped for 46 years (1844–1889). When Gerard Manley Hopkins was born, King James Bible was about 233.

On the map

About 87 km separate Hampton Court, London, England from Stratford, Essex, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

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

From the biographies

King James Bible: king james version, authorized version, hampton court conference, william tyndale, john wycliffe, lancelot andrewes, miles smith, george abbot. Gerard Manley Hopkins: stratford, essex, robert bridges, the wreck of the deutschland, sprung rhythm, oxford movement, john henry newman, society of jesus, terrible sonnets.

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.

Psalm 34
King James Bible
77% divine, lord
Compare
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Ecclesiastes 1
King James Bible
77% divine
Compare
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Psalm 1
King James Bible
76% divine, life, spiritual
Compare
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Ecclesiastes 1
King James Bible
75% divine
Compare
In the Valley of the Elwy
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Psalm 23
King James Bible
74% valley, divine
Compare
In the Valley of the Elwy
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Psalm 34
King James Bible
74% divine
Compare
In the Valley of the Elwy
Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

King James Bible: Spirituality, Peace, Wonder. Gerard Manley Hopkins: Spirituality, Wonder, Longing.

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