In summer, when the Cuckoo sings, And clouds like greater moons can shine; When every leafy tree doth hold A loving heart that beats with mine: Now, when the Brook has cresses green, As well as stones, to check his pace; And, if the Owl appears, he's forced By small birds to some hiding-place: Then, like red Robin in the spring, I shun those haunts where men are found; My house holds little joy until Leaves fall and birds can make no sound; Let none invade that wilderness Into whose dark green depths I go— Save some fine lady, all in white, Comes like a pillar of pure snow.
They went forth to battle but they always fell. Something they saw above the sullen shields. Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well, And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell. They knew not fear that to the foeman yields, They were not weak, as one who vainly wields A faltering weapon; yet the old tales tell How on the hard-fought field they always fell.
It was a secret music that they heard, The murmurous voice of pity and of peace, And that which pierced the heart was but a word, Though the white breast was red-lipped where the sword Pressed a fierce cruel kiss and did not cease Till its hot thirst was surfeited. Ah these By an unwarlike troubling doubt were stirred, And died for hearing what no foeman heard.
They went forth to battle but they always fell. Their might was not the might of lifted spears. Over the battle-clamor came a spell Of troubling music, and they fought not well. Their wreaths are willows and their tribute, tears. Their names are old sad stories in men's ears. Yet they will scatter the red hordes of Hell, Who went to battle forth and always fell.
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Track 1
How this picture is made
What a fractal is
A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. The large form and the small form are the same kind of thing. A poem can be drawn that way. The shape of the whole comes from the shape of the lines.
Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.
How the boundary is drawn
The number under the picture is the poem constant. It is read from the build of the lines: their length, how uneven they are, the size of the stanzas, the share of vowels, and the way the lines end. A new word moves the number when it changes that build. The same poem always gives the same number.
Drawn on its own, that number sits in a quiet part of the plane, and most poems would look like the same soft disk. So the number is carried outward along its own direction until it meets the edge of the Mandelbrot set, where the shape turns sharp. The picture is the Julia set of that meeting place.
Each point on the canvas is folded again and again by one small rule. Points that stay near the rule form the dark interior. Points that rush away become the coloured bands. The hue comes from the poem constant, and the brightest bands turn toward gold. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.
What the branching signifies
Branching draws the poem as a tree. Each turn follows a line, and every smaller branch repeats that pattern. A longer line reaches farther. The letters at the start of a line bend the next turn. A higher share of vowels opens the branches wider.
The trunk takes its colour from the poem constant and warms toward gold at the tips. When the poem has more than one stanza, gold forks leave the trunk. Each fork is a stanza beyond the first, up to three. The tree divides where the poem divides. One stanza remains a single trunk.