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


1842

Event dated 29 August 1842

Geopolitics

Opium Wars and British Acquisition of Hong Kong

Poets involved

What happened

The First Opium War (1839-1842) culminated in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to cede Hong Kong to Britain. This conflict arose from Britain's opium trade in China, which had devastating social and economic effects on the Chinese population. The acquisition of Hong Kong marked the beginning of a significant period of British colonial influence in Asia, reshaping geopolitical dynamics and contributing to tensions that would last for decades.

Literary impact

The Opium Wars and the subsequent British acquisition of Hong Kong in 1842 highlighted the tensions of imperialism, inspiring Victorian poets like Alfred Lord Tennyson and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to explore themes of trade, exploitation, and cultural clash in their poetry.

Source: Wikipedia

Poets alive in 1842

157 poets

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