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

“voices” across the centuries

Related terms Include related catalogue terms in the chart (each poem counted once per era, even if it has several tags).
voice 104 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 1 / 30 BCE 0 / 12 1500s 0 / 12 1550s 1 / 93 1600s 0 / 183 1650s 0 / 60 1700s 0 / 36 1750s 0 / 165 1800s 3 / 699 1850s 1 / 966 1900s 5 / 1143 1950s 0 / 15

Sample poems · click an era above to focus

Lu Chai
Available versions

Lu Chai

by Wang Wei · Mandarin Chinese

Wang Wei portrait

699 - 761 (~62)

Short is my rest
Available versions

Short is my rest

by William Barley · English

William Barley portrait

c. 1565 - 1614 (~49)

Music when Soft Voices Die
Available versions

Music when Soft Voices Die

by Percy Bysshe Shelley · English

Percy Bysshe Shelley portrait

4 August 1792 - 8 July 1822 (~30)

The Haunted House
Available versions

The Haunted House

by Felicia Dorothea Hemans · English

Felicia Dorothea Hemans portrait

25 September 1793 - 16 May 1835 (~42)

Freedom, Our Queen
Available versions

Freedom, Our Queen

by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. · English

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. portrait

29 August 1809 - 7 October 1894 (~85)

The World Voice
Available versions

The World Voice

by Bliss Carman · English

Bliss Carman portrait

15 April 1861 - 8 June 1929 (~68)

Travel
Available versions

Travel

by Edna St. Vincent Millay · English

Edna St. Vincent Millay portrait

22 February 1892 - 19 October 1950 (~58)

Since, on a quiet night
Available versions

Since, on a quiet night

by Dylan Thomas · English

Dylan Thomas portrait

27 October 1914 - 9 November 1953 (~39)

Jeu d'Esprit
Available versions

Jeu d'Esprit

by Francis Ledwidge · English

Francis Ledwidge portrait

19 August 1887 - 31 July 1917 (~30)

Natural Music
Available versions

Natural Music

by Robinson Jeffers · English

Robinson Jeffers portrait

10 January 1887 - 20 January 1962 (~75)

Now playing
-
-
0:00
0:00
Track 1

Poem Actions

Choose an action for this poem

Skip to main content