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 nature beauty 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 childhood presence sound past lover consciousness truth earth women dream flower irish garden rain summer mind lovers

“light” + enlightenment, delight, moonlight, flight, lights 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 2 / 28 BCE 0 / 12 1500s 1 / 9 1550s 3 / 87 1600s 5 / 172 1650s 0 / 57 1700s 1 / 32 1750s 12 / 160 1800s 40 / 680 1850s 49 / 930 1900s 81 / 1109 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Lu Chai

Available versions

Lu Chai

by Wang Wei · Mandarin Chinese

699 - 761 (~62)

Quiet Night Thoughts

Available versions

Quiet Night Thoughts

by Li Bai · Mandarin Chinese

701 - 762 (~61)

No Pleasure Without Some Pain

Available versions

No Pleasure Without Some Pain

by Thomas, Lord Vaux · English

25 April 1509 - c. October 1556 (~47)

To the Nightingale

Available versions

To the Nightingale

by Sir John Davies · English

16 April 1569 - 8 December 1626 (~57)

In Youth Is Pleasure

Available versions

In Youth Is Pleasure

by Robert Wever · English

c. 1520 - c. 1570 (~50)

Loves Garden Grief

Available versions

Loves Garden Grief

by Robert Southwell · English

c. 1561 - 21 February 1595 (~34)

On His Blindness

Available versions

On His Blindness

by John Milton · English

9 December 1608 - 8 November 1674 (~66)

Breake of Day

Available versions

Breake of Day

by John Donne · English

1572 - 31 March 1631 (~59)

That Women Are but Mens Shaddowes

Available versions

That Women Are but Mens Shaddowes

by Ben Jonson · English

c. 11 June 1572 - 6 August 1637 (~65)

To Music, to Becalm His Fever

Available versions

To Music, to Becalm His Fever

by Robert Herrick · English

24 August 1591 - 15 October 1674 (~83)

Come, sable night

Available versions

Come, sable night

by John Ward · English

8 September 1571 - 1638 (~67)

A Hymn to the Moon

Available versions

A Hymn to the Moon

by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu · English

May 1689 - 21 August 1762 (~73)

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