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

“light” across the centuries

Related terms Include related catalogue terms in the chart (each poem counted once per era, even if it has several tags).
twilight 15 poems delight 14 poems moonlight 10 poems flight 7 poems lights 7 poems lightning 7 poems enlightenment 4 poems sunlight 3 poems

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

pre-1500 2 / 30 BCE 0 / 12 1500s 1 / 12 1550s 1 / 93 1600s 3 / 183 1650s 0 / 60 1700s 1 / 36 1750s 6 / 165 1800s 37 / 699 1850s 44 / 966 1900s 73 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Canzoniere 11
Available versions

Canzoniere 11

by Francesco Petrarca · Italian

Francesco Petrarca portrait

1304 - 19 July 1374 (~70)

Lu Chai
Available versions

Lu Chai

by Wang Wei · Mandarin Chinese

Wang Wei portrait

699 - 761 (~62)

No Pleasure Without Some Pain
Available versions

No Pleasure Without Some Pain

by Thomas, Lord Vaux · English

Thomas, Lord Vaux portrait

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

To the Nightingale
Available versions

To the Nightingale

by Sir John Davies · English

Sir John Davies portrait

16 April 1569 - 8 December 1626 (~57)

On His Blindness
Available versions

On His Blindness

by John Milton · English

John Milton portrait

9 December 1608 - 8 November 1674 (~66)

Breake of Day
Available versions

Breake of Day

by John Donne · English

John Donne portrait

1572 - 31 March 1631 (~59)

That Women Are but Mens Shaddowes
Available versions

That Women Are but Mens Shaddowes

by Ben Jonson · English

Ben Jonson portrait

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

A Hymn to the Moon
Available versions

A Hymn to the Moon

by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu · English

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu portrait

May 1689 - 21 August 1762 (~73)

The Resignation
Available versions

The Resignation

by Thomas Chatterton · English

Thomas Chatterton portrait

20 November 1752 - 24 August 1770 (~18)

The wretch condemn'd with life to part
Available versions

The wretch condemn'd with life to part

by Oliver Goldsmith · English

Oliver Goldsmith portrait

c. 10 November 1728 - 4 April 1774 (~46)

The Glow-Worm
Available versions

The Glow-Worm

by Charlotte Smith · English

Charlotte Smith portrait

4 May 1749 - 28 October 1806 (~57)

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