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 Habington William Habington

Poet B

Sir John Beaumont Sir John Beaumont
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 72% Blended 72%
Swap sides Another related pair
William Habington

William Habington

4 November 1605 – 30 November 1654 (~49)
2 live poems · English

In the rich tapestry of seventeenth-century English poetry, William Habington occupies a distinctive position—neither as celebrated as John Donne nor as experimental as George Herbert, yet possessing a unique voice that championed marital love and spiritual devotion with rare sincerity. His story unfolds against the backdrop of religious persecution, political upheaval, and the flowering of Caroline literature, revea…

“Virtue is often tenant to a cottage, and familiarity with greatness (if worth be not transcendent above the title) is but a glorious servitude, fools only are willing to suffer.”

Neighbourhood: Cavalier Poets, Love Poets, Metaphysical Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities
Sir John Beaumont

Sir John Beaumont

c. 1583 – 19 April 1627 (~44)
1 live poem · English

Sir John Beaumont, first baronet of Grace Dieu, was born about 1583 and died on 19 April 1627. He belongs to that large and fascinating company of English writers whose work has survived more quietly than their fame deserved. In his own lifetime and for generations afterward, he was known not merely as a poet but as a gentleman of substantial standing: a landowner in Leicestershire, a member of a distinguished legal…

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Love Poets, Renaissance Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Tenderness, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

William Habington
Sir John Beaumont
1583 1654
They overlapped for 23 years (1605–1627). When William Habington was born, Sir John Beaumont was about 22. William Habington was about 22 when Sir John Beaumont died.
William Habington in history Sir John Beaumont in history Years they were given

On the map

About 88 km separate Hindlip Hall, Worcestershire, England from Grace Dieu, Leicestershire, England. Both have ground in London.

William Habington

Sir John Beaumont

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.

William Habington only

castara love beloved roses beauty marble death religious flowers lover heaven hell

Sir John Beaumont only

beaumont life father grief elegy loss faith

From the biographies

catholic religious

William Habington: hindlip hall, worcestershire, catholic recusancy, thomas habington, mary queen of scots, saint-omer, castara, lucy herbert. Sir John Beaumont: grace dieu, leicestershire, roman catholic recusant, charles i, francis beaumont, the metamorphosis of tobacco, bosworth field, michael drayton.

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.

To Roses in the Bosome of Castara
William Habington
71%
Compare
Of My Deare Sonne, Geruase Beaumont
Sir John Beaumont
Of his being in Love
William Habington
67%
Compare
Of My Deare Sonne, Geruase Beaumont
Sir John Beaumont

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

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
1616 Death of William Shakespeare
1619 First Africans Arrive in Virginia
1620 Mayflower Carries the Pilgrims to New England
1620 Sailing of the Mayflower
1620 The Mayflower Compact is Signed

William Habington

1620 Education at Saint-Omer
1625 Marriage to Lucy Harrington
1634 Publication of 'Castara'
1635 Residence at Hindlip Hall
1641 Publication of 'The Observator'
1646 Patronage of the Earl of Pembroke
1647 Publication of 'The Queen of Arragon'
1654 Death of William Habington

Sir John Beaumont

1597 Education at Broadgates Hall
1598 Death of Father
1602 Publication of 'The Metamorphosis of Tobacco'
1605 Head of the Family
1606 Friendship with Francis Beaumont
1610 Publication of 'The Bosom Friend'
1616 Death of Francis Beaumont
1620 Publication of 'The Divine Poems'

Emotional landscapes

William Habington: Longing, Wonder, Tenderness. Sir John Beaumont: Sorrow, Tenderness, Despair.

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