Poem fractal
0.020 apart. A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.
This number is read from the build of the lines. The bright edge is that number, carried outward until the pattern repeats.
−0.0756 + 0.3895i
Drawing the boundary…
−0.0653 + 0.3726i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approached unlocked her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:
Farewell, all joys; O death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.
Oh! say on a Pillow of Down can you rest,
While I on the Earth or on Straw must recline!
Oh! say can you wrap the warm Fur o'er your breast?
While bare to the Winds and the Tempest is mine.
No Pillow have I, even that you deny one,
No Garment have I, nor a Penny to buy one,
He hears not, nor Pities my frantic distress,
Yet sure he remembers mad Wand'ring Bess.
He gave me bright Gems, and he gave me much Gold;
And proud was his fond foolish Anna to wear them,
But the love which he gave, Oh! it soon grew cold;
And then I no longer, no longer could bear them.
Can Gems calmly lie, on a fast breaking heart,
Can they bind the poor brain, the poor brain that's on fire,
No my sighs from my heart, bade the bright Jewels start,
And the throbs of my brain, of my brain burst their wire.
I sent them all back from a Soul on the rack,
And said all thy presents deceiver I spurn,
For that Jewel my fame, which I gave thee Oh! shame,
That Jewel most precious, thou can'st not return.
They tell me I'm wild, but I answer oh! no,
For my wrongs for my wrongs still my memory can seize on,
And trust me to know the extent of ones woe,
Is a proof too sure of Reason, is a proof too sure of Reason.
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.
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.
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.
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