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

“sound” across the centuries

Related terms Include related catalogue terms in the chart (each poem counted once per era, even if it has several tags).
sounds 7 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 0 / 30 BCE 1 / 12 1500s 0 / 12 1550s 0 / 93 1600s 1 / 183 1650s 2 / 60 1700s 1 / 36 1750s 1 / 165 1800s 12 / 699 1850s 22 / 966 1900s 25 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Olympian 14
Available versions

Olympian 14

by Pindar · Greek

Pindar portrait

c. 518 BC - c. 438 BC (~80)

Along the dark and silent night
Available versions

Along the dark and silent night

by Robert Herrick · English

Robert Herrick portrait

24 August 1591 - 15 October 1674 (~83)

Frog Haiku
Available versions

Frog Haiku

by Matsuo Bashō · Japanese

Matsuo Bashō portrait

1644 - 28 November 1694 (~50)

The Voice of Cicadas
Available versions

The Voice of Cicadas

by Matsuo Bashō · Japanese

Matsuo Bashō portrait

1644 - 28 November 1694 (~50)

Sound and Sense
Available versions

Sound and Sense

by Alexander Pope · English

Alexander Pope portrait

21 May 1688 - 30 May 1744 (~56)

A Riddle
Available versions

A Riddle

by Anna Lætitia Barbauld · English

Anna Lætitia Barbauld portrait

20 June 1743 - 9 March 1825 (~82)

The Infinite
Available versions

The Infinite

by Giacomo Leopardi · Italian

Giacomo Leopardi portrait

29 June 1798 - 14 June 1837 (~39)

Silence
Available versions

Silence

by Thomas Hood · English

Thomas Hood portrait

23 May 1799 - 3 May 1845 (~46)

The Hunter's Song
Available versions

The Hunter's Song

by Barry Cornwall · English

Barry Cornwall portrait

21 November 1787 - 5 October 1874 (~87)

The Sound of the Sea
Available versions

The Sound of the Sea

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · English

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow portrait

27 February 1807 - 24 March 1882 (~75)

The Owl
Available versions

The Owl

by Alfred Lord Tennyson · English

Alfred Lord Tennyson portrait

6 August 1809 - 6 October 1892 (~83)

The splendor falls on castle-walls
Available versions

The splendor falls on castle-walls

by Alfred Lord Tennyson · English

Alfred Lord Tennyson portrait

6 August 1809 - 6 October 1892 (~83)

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