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



Poet Affinities

Every poet has a thematic centre of gravity averaged from their critiqued poems. Here we use that to find the poets whose work rhymes with a given writer — often in surprising ways.

Rank by: Both (blended) Life & context Their poems

Poets whose work rhymes most with John Sheffield

Thomas Stanley
3 September 1625–12 April 1678 (~53)
3 poems analysed
82% affinity
Shared: love
bio 77% · poems 87%
John Dryden
9 August 1631–12 May 1700 (~69)
2 poems analysed
81% affinity
bio 75% · poems 88%
Sir Philip Sidney
30 November 1554–17 October 1586 (~32)
3 poems analysed
80% affinity
bio 74% · poems 88%
Alfred Austin
30 May 1835–2 June 1913 (~78)
17 poems analysed
80% affinity
bio 74% · poems 86%
Sir Edward Dyer
c. October 1543–11 May 1607 (~64)
2 poems analysed
79% affinity
Shared: court, love
bio 75% · poems 85%
Sir Thomas Wyatt
c. 1503–11 October 1542 (~39)
3 poems analysed
79% affinity
bio 74% · poems 86%
Robert Southey
12 August 1774–21 March 1843 (~69)
4 poems analysed
79% affinity
bio 75% · poems 85%
Sir Richard Fanshawe
12 June 1608–June 1666 (~58)
2 poems analysed
78% affinity
bio 76% · poems 82%
Abraham Cowley
1618–28 July 1667 (~49)
3 poems analysed
78% affinity
Shared: court
bio 74% · poems 84%
Mark Akenside
9 November 1721–23 June 1770 (~49)
2 poems analysed
78% affinity
Shared: virgil
bio 72% · poems 86%
Thomas, Lord Vaux
25 April 1509–c. October 1556 (~47)
2 poems analysed
78% affinity
Shared: court
bio 73% · poems 84%
William Alexander
c. 1567–12 February 1640 (~73)
2 poems analysed
78% affinity
bio 73% · poems 84%
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