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.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this 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

Philip Bourke Marston Philip Bourke Marston

Poet B

Thomas Bailey Aldrich Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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 64% Poems 84% Blended 73%
Swap sides Another related pair
Philip Bourke Marston

Philip Bourke Marston

13 August 1850 – 13 February 1887 (~37)
22 live poems · English

Philip Bourke Marston was born in London on 13 August 1850 and died there on 13 February 1887, only thirty-six years later. His short life was shaped by an unusually concentrated mixture of literary privilege, physical disability, bereavement, emotional intensity, and artistic determination. During his lifetime he was admired by prominent writers, including Algernon Charles Swinburne, and was known in literary circle…

“I could see the tree-boughs waving in the wind, and I could see the pageant of sunset in the west, and the glimmer of a fire upon the hearth.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness
Listen Timeline Affinities
Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

11 November 1836 – 19 March 1907 (~71)
2 live poems · English

In the pantheon of American letters, Thomas Bailey Aldrich occupies a curious position—neither forgotten nor fully celebrated, he stands as a bridge figure between the rough-hewn democracy of antebellum American literature and the refined aestheticism that would characterize the Gilded Age. Born into a nation still finding its literary voice and dying in an America confidently asserting its cultural sophistication, A…

“The color of his thought instinctively blends itself with the color of its affinities.”

Neighbourhood: American Poets, Edwardian Poets, Love Poets, Nature Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Wonder, Peace
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Philip Bourke Marston
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
1836 1907
They overlapped for 38 years (1850–1887). When Philip Bourke Marston was born, Thomas Bailey Aldrich was about 14. Thomas Bailey Aldrich was about 51 when Philip Bourke Marston died.
Philip Bourke Marston in history Thomas Bailey Aldrich in history Years they were given

On the map

About 5,198 km separate London, England from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

Philip Bourke Marston

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

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

life world memory spring

Philip Bourke Marston only

love beloved grief death loss beauty suffering pain lover sorrow queen woman

Thomas Bailey Aldrich only

nature city touch crocus wind petals noon mind rose brook

From the biographies

Philip Bourke Marston: london, john westland marston, algernon charles swinburne, song-tide and other poems, all in all, blindness, victorian poetry, pre-raphaelite. Thomas Bailey Aldrich: portsmouth, new hampshire, new orleans, lilian woodman, the bells: a collection of chimes, the ballad of babie bell, shiloh: a requiem, the story of a bad boy, james russell lowell.

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.

Moveless Memories
Philip Bourke Marston
83% wind, memory
Compare
Memory
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
To a Day
Philip Bourke Marston
82% memory
Compare
Memory
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Sad Songs Remembered
Philip Bourke Marston
80%
Compare
Memory
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
To a Tune
Philip Bourke Marston
79% memory
Compare
Memory
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
A Mood
Philip Bourke Marston
79%
Compare
Memory
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
A Mood
Philip Bourke Marston
78% spring, life
Compare
A Touch of Nature
Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1850 Publication of 'In Memoriam A.H.H.'
1851 Publication of Moby-Dick
1854 John Snow Traces the Broad Street Pump
1854 Publication of 'Walden'
1856 Invention of the Bessemer Process for Mass Steel Production
1856 Mauveine Synthetic Dye Invention
1856 Perkin's Accidental Discovery of Mauveine
1857 Pasteur Demonstrates the Biological Basis of Fermentation

Philip Bourke Marston

1853 Early Education and Literary Influence of Philip Bourke Marston
1870 Engagement to Mary Nesbit
1871 Publication of 'Song-Tide and Other Poems'
1873 Loss of Vision
1875 Publication of 'All in All'
1883 Death of Philip Bourke Marston's Father
1887 Final Collection 'The Last Poems'
1888 Publication of Posthumous Works

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

1845 Aldrich's Early Education Begins
1856 Aldrich Moves to Boston
1865 Publication of 'The Bells' in 'The Atlantic Monthly'
1870 Publication of 'The Story of a Bad Boy'
1874 Publication of 'Cloth of Gold'
1881 Aldrich Becomes Editor of 'The Atlantic Monthly'
1890 Publication of 'The Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich'
1900 Aldrich's Final Years in New York City

Emotional landscapes

Philip Bourke Marston: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness. Thomas Bailey Aldrich: Longing, Wonder, Peace.

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