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

“truth” 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 2 / 12 1550s 2 / 93 1600s 2 / 183 1650s 1 / 60 1700s 0 / 36 1750s 1 / 165 1800s 18 / 699 1850s 20 / 966 1900s 17 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

The True Knight
Available versions

The True Knight

by Stephen Hawes · English

Stephen Hawes portrait

c. 1474 - c. 1523 (~49)

Your Looks so Often Cast
Available versions

Your Looks so Often Cast

by Sir Thomas Wyatt · English

Sir Thomas Wyatt portrait

c. 1503 - 11 October 1542 (~39)

Short is my rest
Available versions

Short is my rest

by William Barley · English

William Barley portrait

c. 1565 - 1614 (~49)

Phillida and Coridon
Available versions

Phillida and Coridon

by Nicholas Breton · English

Nicholas Breton portrait

c. 1554 - c. 1625 (~71)

The Dreame
Available versions

The Dreame

by John Donne · English

John Donne portrait

1572 - 31 March 1631 (~59)

Falsehood
Available versions

Falsehood

by William Cartwright · English

William Cartwright portrait

1 September 1611 - 29 November 1643 (~32)

What have I left to doe but dye
Available versions

What have I left to doe but dye

by Charles Cotton · English

Charles Cotton portrait

28 April 1630 - 16 February 1687 (~57)

Late Wisdom
Available versions

Late Wisdom

by George Crabbe · English

George Crabbe portrait

24 December 1754 - 3 February 1832 (~78)

Ode on a Grecian Urn
Available versions

Ode on a Grecian Urn

by John Keats · English

John Keats portrait

31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821 (~26)

Bards of Passion and of Mirth
Available versions

Bards of Passion and of Mirth

by John Keats · English

John Keats portrait

31 October 1795 - 23 February 1821 (~26)

Fare thee well, thou lovely one!
Available versions

Fare thee well, thou lovely one!

by Thomas Moore · English

Thomas Moore portrait

28 May 1779 - 25 February 1852 (~73)

Lift not the painted veil
Available versions

Lift not the painted veil

by Percy Bysshe Shelley · English

Percy Bysshe Shelley portrait

4 August 1792 - 8 July 1822 (~30)

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