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


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 desire memory divine spiritual heart grief power romantic suffering woman light soul dead body loss pain music wind philosophical voice landscape hope religious spring flowers sorrow children water faith bird lover rose silence mortality domestic presence childhood sound earth past consciousness truth dream women irish eyes flower garden mind rain lovers

“bird” across the centuries

Related terms Include related catalogue terms in the chart (each poem counted once per era, even if it has several tags).
birds 54 poems blackbird 4 poems birdsong 1 poem bluebird 1 poem hummingbird 1 poem

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

pre-1500 0 / 30 BCE 0 / 12 1500s 0 / 12 1550s 1 / 93 1600s 0 / 183 1650s 0 / 60 1700s 0 / 36 1750s 3 / 165 1800s 20 / 699 1850s 32 / 966 1900s 20 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Of all the birds
Available versions

Of all the birds

by George Gascoigne · English

George Gascoigne portrait

c. 1539 - 7 October 1577 (~38)

The Banks O' Doon
Available versions

The Banks O' Doon

by Robert Burns · English

Robert Burns portrait

25 January 1759 - 21 July 1796 (~37)

To the Lark
Available versions

To the Lark

by Anna Lætitia Barbauld · English

Anna Lætitia Barbauld portrait

20 June 1743 - 9 March 1825 (~82)

To a Nightingale
Available versions

To a Nightingale

by Charlotte Smith · English

Charlotte Smith portrait

4 May 1749 - 28 October 1806 (~57)

Ode to a Nightingale
Available versions

Ode to a Nightingale

by John Keats · English

John Keats portrait

31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821 (~26)

Proud Maisie
Available versions

Proud Maisie

by Sir Walter Scott · English

Sir Walter Scott portrait

15 August 1771 - 21 September 1832 (~61)

The Green Linnet
Available versions

The Green Linnet

by William Wordsworth · English

William Wordsworth portrait

7 April 1770 - 23 April 1850 (~80)

The Redbreast
Available versions

The Redbreast

by Charlotte Richardson · English

Charlotte Richardson portrait

5 March 1775 - 26 September 1825 (~50)

Beauty and Song
Available versions

Beauty and Song

by Thomas Moore · English

Thomas Moore portrait

28 May 1779 - 25 February 1852 (~73)

False Poets and True
Available versions

False Poets and True

by Thomas Hood · English

Thomas Hood portrait

23 May 1799 - 3 May 1845 (~46)

The Darkling Thrush
Available versions

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy · English

Thomas Hardy portrait

2 June 1840 - 11 January 1928 (~88)

A Birthday
Available versions

A Birthday

by Christina Rossetti · English

Christina Rossetti portrait

5 December 1830 - 29 December 1894 (~64)

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