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



1708

Event dated 11 July 1708

The Battle of Oudenarde Shapes War Writing in Queen Anne's Europe

What happened

The Battle of Oudenarde was fought in 1708 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Allied forces under Marlborough and Eugene defeated the French. The victory became part of a wider political contest over empire, succession and the balance of power in Europe.

Literary impact

Such battles fed English poems, sermons and journalism praising Marlborough or attacking the costs of war. They form the political background to Augustan satire, where poets tested the language of glory against debt, party and suffering.

Source: Wikipedia

Poets alive in 1708

22 poets

More events in 1708

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