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.

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


Compare Poets

Pick two poets who seem to have nothing to do with each other — a Gothic American and a pastoral Englishman, say — and see where the catalogue actually joins them: overlapping years, shared ground, distinctive themes, and the poems that secretly rhyme.

Poet A

Richard Henry Horne Richard Henry Horne

Poet B

Walter Savage Landor Walter Savage Landor
Compare two related contemporaries

A random pair who overlapped in time and whose poems already rhyme in the catalogue — a way into poets you may not have met.

Strongly related
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 72% Poems 77% Blended 74%
Swap sides Another related pair
Richard Henry Horne

Richard Henry Horne

31 December 1803 – 13 March 1884 (~81)
2 live poems · English

Richard Henry Horne entered the world in London on the last day of 1802 (though he himself, with characteristic contrariness, sometimes gave the date as New Year's Day 1803), the son of James Horne, a quarter-master in the 61st Regiment of Foot. His father's military postings took the family to Guernsey, where they lived until James Horne's death in 1810 left the boy fatherless at the age of seven or eight. The young…

“Do all you can for mankind: mankind have established a rule to do nothing for you!”

Neighbourhood: Dramatic Poets, Romantic Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Sorrow, Irony
Listen Timeline Affinities
Walter Savage Landor

Walter Savage Landor

30 January 1775 – 17 September 1864 (~89)
8 live poems · English

Walter Savage Landor was born on 30 January 1775 at Ipsley Court, near Warwick, England, into circumstances of comfort, cultivation, and inherited expectation. His father, Walter Landor, was a physician of substantial means and social standing; his mother, Elizabeth Savage, came from a family whose name and property gave her son the middle name he would make inseparable from his literary identity. Landor’s life, whic…

“It often comes into my head That we may dream when we are dead, But I am far from sure we do. O that it were so! then my rest Would be indeed among the blest; I should for ever dream of you.”

Neighbourhood: Death & Mortality, Love Poets, Mystical & Spiritual Poets, Romantic Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Despair
Listen Timeline Affinities

In time

Richard Henry Horne
Walter Savage Landor
1775 1884
They overlapped for 62 years (1803–1864). When Richard Henry Horne was born, Walter Savage Landor was about 28. Richard Henry Horne was about 61 when Walter Savage Landor died.
Richard Henry Horne in history Walter Savage Landor in history Years they were given

On the map

About 133 km separate London, England from Warwick, England. Shared ground: United Kingdom.

Richard Henry Horne

Walter Savage Landor

Open both on the History Atlas

Themes they return to

Distinctive words drawn from each poet’s critiqued poems — what they keep writing about, not just what their biographies mention.

No overlapping top terms in the poem critiques — any kinship may sit in mood rather than vocabulary.

Richard Henry Horne only

horne plough labour dawn blackbird light cold landscape horses gold enslaved body

Walter Savage Landor only

love life romantic death beloved memory grief lament dead woman tears nature

From the biographies

Richard Henry Horne: london, guernsey, royal military college, orion, hecatompylos, elizabeth barrett browning, william howitt, cosmo de' medici. Walter Savage Landor: ipsley court, warwick, florence, gebir, julia thuillier, imaginary conversations, trinity college, oxford.

Poems that secretly rhyme

The closest poem-to-poem matches in critique space — the sort of kinship a listener hears before the catalogue admits it.

The Plough
Richard Henry Horne
72% landscape
Compare
On His Poems
Walter Savage Landor
The Slave; a Sea-piece, Off Jamaica
Richard Henry Horne
69%
Compare
The Maid’s Lament
Walter Savage Landor
The Plough
Richard Henry Horne
67%
Compare
Age
Walter Savage Landor
The Slave; a Sea-piece, Off Jamaica
Richard Henry Horne
67%
Compare
On His Poems
Walter Savage Landor
The Slave; a Sea-piece, Off Jamaica
Richard Henry Horne
66%
Compare
She I love (alas in vain!)
Walter Savage Landor
The Plough
Richard Henry Horne
66%
Compare
The Maid’s Lament
Walter Savage Landor

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

1803 Napoleonic Wars Begin
1803 The Louisiana Purchase
1805 HMS Victory Leads Britain at Trafalgar
1812 French Invasion of Russia Begins
1812 Publication of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage Cantos I and II
1812 The Harrowing Retreat from Moscow
1813 Imprisonment in Surrey Gaol
1815 1815 Tambora Eruption

Richard Henry Horne

1810 Early Education and Family Transition for Horne
1825 Expedition with the Mexican Navy
1826 Shipwreck and Return to England
1843 Publication of 'Orion'
1845 Friendship with Alfred Tennyson
1850 Publication of 'The Death of the Old Year'
1857 Publication of 'The Epicurean'
1884 Final Years and Legacy

Walter Savage Landor

1794 Rustication from Oxford
1798 Publication of 'Gebir'
1800 Friendship with Robert Southey
1810 Friendship with Charles Lamb
1811 Marriage to Julia Thuillier
1824 Move to Italy
1824 Publication of 'Imaginary Conversations'
1864 Publication of 'The Last Fruit off an Old Tree'

Emotional landscapes

Richard Henry Horne: Wonder, Sorrow, Irony. Walter Savage Landor: Sorrow, Longing, Despair.

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