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

Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne

Poet B

Marriott Edgar Marriott Edgar
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 57% Blended 57%
Swap sides Another related pair
Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne

5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909 (~72)
14 live poems · English

Algernon Charles Swinburne was born on 5 April 1837 at 7 Chester Street, Grosvenor Place, London, into a family whose rank, traditions, and geography would all enter his imagination. He was the eldest surviving child of Captain, later Admiral, Charles Henry Swinburne and Lady Jane Henrietta Ashburnham, daughter of the third Earl of Ashburnham. His inheritance was aristocratic, military, and literary. The Swinburnes p…

“I am not a professional or official poet, and could not undertake to write any verse—patriotic or other—to order.”

Neighbourhood: Decadent Poets, Dramatic Poets, Political Poets, Pre-Raphaelite Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
Marriott Edgar

Marriott Edgar

5 October 1880 – 5 May 1951 (~71)
1 live poem · English

On a crisp October morning in 1880, in the Scottish town of Kirkcudbright, a child was born who would grow up to capture the essence of Northern English working-class humor in verse. George Marriott Edgar entered the world on October 5th into a family already steeped in theatrical tradition, though no one could have predicted that this quiet, droll man of medium height would become one of Britain's most beloved comic…

Neighbourhood: Children's Verse, Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Joy, Tenderness

In time

Algernon Charles Swinburne
Marriott Edgar
1837 1951
They overlapped for 30 years (1880–1909). When Marriott Edgar was born, Algernon Charles Swinburne was about 43. Marriott Edgar was about 29 when Algernon Charles Swinburne died.

On the map

About 453 km separate Grosvenor Place, London, England from Kirkcudbright, Scotland. Both have ground in London and England.

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.

Algernon Charles Swinburne only

Marriott Edgar only

From the biographies

Algernon Charles Swinburne: london, isle of wight, northumberland, captain charles henry swinburne, lady jane henrietta ashburnham, atalanta in calydon, poems and ballads, percy bysshe shelley. Marriott Edgar: kirkcudbright, young albert ramsbottom, the lion and albert, the co-optimists, stanley holloway, pantomime dame, great war, royal sussex regiment.

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.

Nell Gwyn
Algernon Charles Swinburne
61%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar
In Time of Mourning
Algernon Charles Swinburne
60%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar
The Sundew
Algernon Charles Swinburne
59%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar
Child's Song
Algernon Charles Swinburne
58%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar
Love laid his sleepless head
Algernon Charles Swinburne
58%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar
A Leave-Taking
Algernon Charles Swinburne
58%
Compare
The 'Ole in the Ark
Marriott Edgar

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Algernon Charles Swinburne: Longing, Sorrow, Despair. Marriott Edgar: Irony, Joy, Tenderness.

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