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

Manmohan Ghose Manmohan Ghose

Poet B

Philip Bourke Marston Philip Bourke Marston
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 70% Poems 88% Blended 78%
Swap sides Another related pair
Manmohan Ghose

Manmohan Ghose

19 January 1869 – 4 January 1924 (~55)
2 live poems · English

In the annals of Indian literature, few figures occupy a position as quietly significant yet fundamentally pioneering as Manmohan Ghose (19 January 1869 – 4 January 1924), one of the earliest Indian poets to write substantially in English. Born in Bhagalpur in Bengal, Ghose's life represents a fascinating narrative of cultural displacement, artistic achievement, and personal tragedy. He stands as a bridge between two…

“I know neither the people nor the language—all is strange and alien. I am four-fifths an Englishman if not entirely one.”

Neighbourhood: Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder
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

In time

Manmohan Ghose
Philip Bourke Marston
1850 1924
They overlapped for 19 years (1869–1887). When Manmohan Ghose was born, Philip Bourke Marston was about 19. Manmohan Ghose was about 18 when Philip Bourke Marston died.

On the map

About 7,637 km separate Bhagalpur, Bengal, India from London, England. Different countries, different weather — unless a poem carries one landscape into the other.

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

Manmohan Ghose only

Philip Bourke Marston only

From the biographies

loss

Manmohan Ghose: bhagalpur, sri aurobindo, primavera: poems by four authors, the blindness of love, laurence binyon, oxford, presidency college, malati banerjee. Philip Bourke Marston: london, john westland marston, algernon charles swinburne, song-tide and other poems, all in all, blindness, victorian poetry, pre-raphaelite.

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.

A Lament
Manmohan Ghose
83% world, grief, loss, beloved
Compare
Bereft
Philip Bourke Marston
Heap ruby upon amethyst,
Manmohan Ghose
81% love, beloved, desire
Compare
The First Kiss
Philip Bourke Marston
A Lament
Manmohan Ghose
80% grief, beloved
Compare
Not Thou But I
Philip Bourke Marston
A Lament
Manmohan Ghose
80% grief, beloved
Compare
A Year Ago
Philip Bourke Marston
A Lament
Manmohan Ghose
79% grief, beloved
Compare
Sad Songs Remembered
Philip Bourke Marston
A Lament
Manmohan Ghose
79% grief, beloved
Compare
A little time for laughter
Philip Bourke Marston

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Manmohan Ghose: Longing, Tenderness, Wonder. Philip Bourke Marston: Longing, Sorrow, Tenderness.

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