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

“childhood” across the centuries

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 0 / 93 1600s 0 / 183 1650s 0 / 60 1700s 0 / 36 1750s 5 / 165 1800s 16 / 699 1850s 11 / 966 1900s 34 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

The Echoing Green
Available versions

The Echoing Green

by William Blake · English

William Blake portrait

28 November 1757 - 12 August 1827 (~70)

Nurse's Song
Available versions

Nurse's Song

by William Blake · English

William Blake portrait

28 November 1757 - 12 August 1827 (~70)

Infant Joy
Available versions

Infant Joy

by William Blake · English

William Blake portrait

28 November 1757 - 12 August 1827 (~70)

The Schoolboy
Available versions

The Schoolboy

by William Blake · English

William Blake portrait

28 November 1757 - 12 August 1827 (~70)

To a Child
Available versions

To a Child

by Joanna Baillie · English

Joanna Baillie portrait

11 September 1762 - 23 February 1851 (~89)

Mild the mist upon the hill
Available versions

Mild the mist upon the hill

by Emily Brontë · English

Emily Brontë portrait

30 July 1818 - 19 December 1848 (~30)

Captain Cook (To My Brother)
Available versions

Captain Cook (To My Brother)

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon · English

Letitia Elizabeth Landon portrait

14 August 1802 - 15 October 1838 (~36)

I Remember, I Remember
Available versions

I Remember, I Remember

by Thomas Hood · English

Thomas Hood portrait

23 May 1799 - 3 May 1845 (~46)

The Old Familiar Faces
Available versions

The Old Familiar Faces

by Charles Lamb · English

Charles Lamb portrait

10 February 1775 - 27 December 1834 (~59)

Long time a child, and still a child
Available versions

Long time a child, and still a child

by Hartley Coleridge · English

Hartley Coleridge portrait

19 September 1796 - 6 January 1849 (~53)

In School-Days
Available versions

In School-Days

by John Greenleaf Whittier · English

John Greenleaf Whittier portrait

17 December 1807 - 7 September 1892 (~85)

The Oxen
Available versions

The Oxen

by Thomas Hardy · English

Thomas Hardy portrait

2 June 1840 - 11 January 1928 (~88)

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