Theme Timeline

Pick a theme and see how often it shows up across 50-year cohorts of V2Melody poets. Bars are normalised so small cohorts don't get drowned out by large ones.

Choose a theme

— none — world life love death beauty nature self social beloved divine memory desire spiritual heart grief power romantic suffering woman light soul loss dead body pain wind philosophical voice music landscape hope religious sorrow spring children flowers faith bird water rose mortality silence domestic presence childhood lover sound earth past consciousness truth women dream flower irish garden mind rain summer lovers

“bird” + bluebird, birds across the centuries

Bar length = percentage of poems in that cohort whose critique surfaced any of these terms. Click an era to focus the poem list below.

pre-1500 1 / 28 BCE 0 / 12 1500s 0 / 9 1550s 1 / 89 1600s 1 / 176 1650s 0 / 57 1700s 1 / 34 1750s 7 / 162 1800s 29 / 683 1850s 44 / 939 1900s 38 / 1115 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Spring Song of the Birds

Available versions

Spring Song of the Birds

by King James I of Scotland · English

July 1394 - 21 February 1437 (~43)

Of all the birds

Available versions

Of all the birds

by George Gascoigne · English

c. 1539 - 7 October 1577 (~38)

Matin Song

Available versions

Matin Song

by Thomas Heywood · English

c. 1574 - August 1641 (~67)

My days have been so wondrous free

Available versions

My days have been so wondrous free

by Thomas Parnell · English

11 September 1679 - 24 October 1718 (~39)

The Banks O' Doon

Available versions

The Banks O' Doon

by Robert Burns · English

25 January 1759 - 21 July 1796 (~37)

To the Lark

Available versions

To the Lark

by Anna Lætitia Barbauld · English

20 June 1743 - 9 March 1825 (~82)

To a Nightingale

Available versions

To a Nightingale

by Charlotte Smith · English

4 May 1749 - 28 October 1806 (~57)

Wanderer's Nightsong

Available versions

Wanderer's Nightsong

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · German

28 August 1749 - 22 March 1832 (~83)

The Echoing Green

Available versions

The Echoing Green

by William Blake · English

28 November 1757 - 12 August 1827 (~70)

The Blossom

Available versions

The Blossom

by William Blake · English

28 November 1757 - 12 August 1827 (~70)

Ode to a Nightingale

Available versions

Ode to a Nightingale

by John Keats · English

31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821 (~26)

Proud Maisie

Available versions

Proud Maisie

by Sir Walter Scott · English

15 August 1771 - 21 September 1832 (~61)

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