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

Robert Southey Robert Southey
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.

Kindred spirits
Their work already rhymes in the catalogue. The rest of this page is the story around that rhyme.
Biography 72% Poems 82% Blended 77%
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…

“The medium of an author’s thoughts must be his words; words are the sole material by which he permanently expresses what has passed in his mind.”

Neighbourhood: Dramatic Poets, Romantic Poets, Social Justice Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Sorrow, Irony
Robert Southey

Robert Southey

12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843 (~69)
4 live poems · English

Robert Southey was born in Bristol on 12 August 1774 and died at Greta Hall, near Keswick in the Lake District, on 21 March 1843. During his lifetime he was among the most visible men of letters in Britain: a poet, historian, biographer, reviewer, editor, translator, political commentator, children’s writer, and, from 1813 until his death, Poet Laureate. Yet posterity has treated him unevenly. He is often remembered…

“Puff me, Coleridge! if you love me, puff me! Puff a couple of hundreds into my pocket!”

Neighbourhood: Hymn Writers, Nature Poets, Political Poets, Romantic Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Irony, Wonder

In time

Richard Henry Horne
Robert Southey
1774 1884
They overlapped for 41 years (1803–1843). When Richard Henry Horne was born, Robert Southey was about 29. Richard Henry Horne was about 40 when Robert Southey died.

On the map

About 171 km separate London, England from Bristol, England. Both have ground in England.

Themes they return to

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

Shared

From the biographies

history

Richard Henry Horne: london, guernsey, royal military college, orion, hecatompylos, elizabeth barrett browning, william howitt, cosmo de' medici. Robert Southey: bristol, greta hall, lake district, pantisocracy, edward fricker, samuel taylor coleridge, joan of arc, thalaba the destroyer.

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 Slave; a Sea-piece, Off Jamaica
Richard Henry Horne
69%
Compare
The Battle of Blenheim
Robert Southey
The Plough
Richard Henry Horne
68%
Compare
The Battle of Blenheim
Robert Southey
The Plough
Richard Henry Horne
68% cold
Compare
The Complaints of the Poor
Robert Southey
The Plough
Richard Henry Horne
68%
Compare
My days among the Dead are past
Robert Southey

The world around them

While their lives overlapped

Notable events from the years they were both alive.

Emotional landscapes

Richard Henry Horne: Wonder, Sorrow, Irony. Robert Southey: Sorrow, Irony, Wonder.

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