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

“dead” 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 1 / 30 BCE 0 / 12 1500s 0 / 12 1550s 0 / 93 1600s 0 / 183 1650s 1 / 60 1700s 1 / 36 1750s 4 / 165 1800s 27 / 699 1850s 48 / 966 1900s 42 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Upon a Dead Man's Head
Available versions

Upon a Dead Man's Head

by John Skelton · English

John Skelton portrait

c. 1460 - 21 June 1529 (~69)

Ode Written in the Year 1746
Available versions

Ode Written in the Year 1746

by WIlliam Collins · English

WIlliam Collins portrait

25 December 1721 - 12 June 1759 (~38)

Crazy Sally!
Available versions

Crazy Sally!

by Amelia Alderson Opie · English

Amelia Alderson Opie portrait

12 November 1769 - 2 December 1853 (~84)

The Dead Beggar
Available versions

The Dead Beggar

by Charlotte Smith · English

Charlotte Smith portrait

4 May 1749 - 28 October 1806 (~57)

An Epitaph
Available versions

An Epitaph

by James Beattie · English

James Beattie portrait

25 October 1735 - 18 August 1803 (~68)

Break, Break, Break
Available versions

Break, Break, Break

by Alfred Lord Tennyson · English

Alfred Lord Tennyson portrait

6 August 1809 - 6 October 1892 (~83)

Thanatopsis
Available versions

Thanatopsis

by William Cullen Bryant · English

William Cullen Bryant portrait

3 November 1794 - 12 June 1878 (~84)

The Sleeper
Available versions

The Sleeper

by Edgar Allan Poe · English

Edgar Allan Poe portrait

19 January 1809 - 7 October 1849 (~40)

The Maid’s Lament
Available versions

The Maid’s Lament

by Walter Savage Landor · English

Walter Savage Landor portrait

30 January 1775 - 17 September 1864 (~89)

My days among the Dead are past
Available versions

My days among the Dead are past

by Robert Southey · English

Robert Southey portrait

12 August 1774 - 21 March 1843 (~69)

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