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

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott

Poet B

John Gibson Lockhart John Gibson Lockhart
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 85% Blended 85%
Swap sides Another related pair
Sir Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott

15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832 (~61)
2 live poems · English

Sir Walter Scott, born in Edinburgh on 15 August 1771 and dead at Abbotsford on 21 September 1832, became one of the most influential writers in the English language: a poet who dominated the reading public before Byron, a novelist who effectively established the modern historical novel, an editor and antiquarian who preserved Scottish oral traditions, a lawyer and public official, a conservative political figure, an…

“Last day of an eventful year; much evil and some good; but especially the courage to endure what Fortune sends without becoming a pipe for her fingers.”

Neighbourhood: Folk & Ballad Poets, Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Wonder, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities
John Gibson Lockhart

John Gibson Lockhart

12 June 1794 – 25 November 1854 (~60)
1 live poem · English

John Gibson Lockhart was born on 12 June 1794 at the manse of Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire, into a world in which Scottish religious discipline, intellectual ambition, and political controversy were closely entwined. His father, the Reverend Dr John Lockhart, was minister of Cambusnethan parish, and his mother, Elizabeth Gibson, came from a family whose name Lockhart later adopted as his middle name. The future writer g…

“It is an old belief that on some solemn shore beyond the sphere of grief dear friends shall meet once more.”

Neighbourhood: Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Sir Walter Scott
John Gibson Lockhart
1771 1854
They overlapped for 39 years (1794–1832). When John Gibson Lockhart was born, Sir Walter Scott was about 23. John Gibson Lockhart was about 38 when Sir Walter Scott died.
Sir Walter Scott in history John Gibson Lockhart in history Years they were given

On the map

About 51 km separate Edinburgh, Scotland from Clyde, Scotland. Both have ground in Abbotsford.

Sir Walter Scott

John Gibson Lockhart

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 hope

Sir Walter Scott only

death robin proud marriage bird social spindle spinning pain thread pleasure fear

John Gibson Lockhart only

lockhart dead faith loss grief belief

From the biographies

edinburgh scottish romantic social

Sir Walter Scott: edinburgh, abbotsford, charlotte carpenter, minstrelsy of the scottish border, the lay of the last minstrel, marmion, the lady of the lake, rokeby. John Gibson Lockhart: cambusnethan, lanarkshire, life of sir walter scott, william blackwood, blackwood's magazine, peter's letters to his kinsfolk, sophia charlotte scott, quarterly review.

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.

Proud Maisie
Sir Walter Scott
80%
Compare
When youthful faith hath fled
John Gibson Lockhart
The Spindle Song
Sir Walter Scott
72% life, hope
Compare
When youthful faith hath fled
John Gibson Lockhart

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1796 Edward Jenner Discovers the Smallpox Vaccine
1798 Coleridge Writes The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Featuring Becalmed Winds
1798 First Publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798)
1799 Volta invents the voltaic pile, the first battery
1803 Napoleonic Wars Begin
1803 The Louisiana Purchase
1805 HMS Victory Leads Britain at Trafalgar
1812 The Harrowing Retreat from Moscow

Sir Walter Scott

1783 Education at the University of Edinburgh
1797 Marriage to Charlotte Margaret Carpenter
1805 Publication of 'The Lay of the Last Minstrel'
1808 Publication of 'Marmion'
1810 Publication of 'The Lady of the Lake'
1811 Establishment of Abbotsford as a Literary Retreat
1820 Involvement in the Scottish Literary Society
1826 Death of Charlotte Scott

John Gibson Lockhart

1817 Publication of 'The Spanish Ballads'
1819 Publication of 'Peter's Letters to His Kinsfolk'
1820 Marriage to Sophia Scott
1821 Birth of Daughter, Mary Lockhart
1823 Birth of Son, John Lockhart
1832 Death of Sir Walter Scott
1837 Publication of 'Life of Sir Walter Scott'

Emotional landscapes

Sir Walter Scott: Sorrow, Wonder, Longing. John Gibson Lockhart: Sorrow, Spirituality, Longing.

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