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

“rural” 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 1 / 93 1600s 0 / 183 1650s 0 / 60 1700s 4 / 36 1750s 1 / 165 1800s 5 / 699 1850s 10 / 966 1900s 7 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Available versions

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

by Christopher Marlowe · English

Christopher Marlowe portrait

26 February 1564 - 30 May 1593 (~29)

Ode on Solitude
Available versions

Ode on Solitude

by Alexander Pope · English

Alexander Pope portrait

21 May 1688 - 30 May 1744 (~56)

My Peggy is a young thing
Available versions

My Peggy is a young thing

by Allan Ramsay · English

Allan Ramsay portrait

c. 15 October 1684 - 7 January 1758 (~74)

A Wish
Available versions

A Wish

by Samuel Rogers · English

Samuel Rogers portrait

30 July 1763 - 18 December 1855 (~92)

One gloomy eve I roam’d about
Available versions

One gloomy eve I roam’d about

by John Clare · English

John Clare portrait

13 July 1793 - 20 May 1864 (~71)

The Owl
Available versions

The Owl

by Alfred Lord Tennyson · English

Alfred Lord Tennyson portrait

6 August 1809 - 6 October 1892 (~83)

The Mother's Call
Available versions

The Mother's Call

by Allan Cunningham · English

Allan Cunningham portrait

7 December 1784 - 30 October 1842 (~58)

Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids
Available versions

Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids

by William Cullen Bryant · English

William Cullen Bryant portrait

3 November 1794 - 12 June 1878 (~84)

A Boy's Song
Available versions

A Boy's Song

by James Hogg · English

James Hogg portrait

c. 9 December 1770 - 21 November 1835 (~65)

The Ruined Maid
Available versions

The Ruined Maid

by Thomas Hardy · English

Thomas Hardy portrait

2 June 1840 - 11 January 1928 (~88)

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