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


1648

Event dated January 1648

Culture

Robert Herrick's 'Fresh Cheese and Cream'

Poets involved

What happened

The English Cavalier poet Robert Herrick published 'Fresh Cheese and Cream' in his 1648 collection 'Hesperides,' a short lyric that compares fresh dairy products to the charms of his beloved Julia. The poem's playful sensuality and vivid imagery exemplify the Cavalier style, where everyday foods are transformed into vehicles of erotic longing, and cheese becomes a metaphor for feminine beauty and desire.

Literary impact

Herrick's poem is a masterclass in turning humble dairy products into sophisticated poetic conceits, influencing later poets such as Andrew Marvell and John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who continued to explore the erotic potential of food imagery. The Cavalier tradition of celebrating life's simple pleasures, including cheese, would be carried forward into the Restoration and beyond, shaping the development of English light verse.

Source: Wikipedia

Poets alive in 1648

43 poets

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