Of all the Sounds despatched abroad, There’s not a Charge to me Like that old measure in the Boughs— That phraseless Melody— The Wind does—working like a Hand— Whose fingers Comb the Sky— Then quiver down, with tufts of Tune— Permitted Gods—and me—
Inheritance it is to us Beyond the Art to Earn— Beyond the trait to take away By Robber—since the Gain Is gotten not of fingers— And inner than the Bone Hid golden, for the whole of days— And even in the Urn, I cannot vouch the merry Dust Do not arise and play, In some odd fashion of it’s own— Some quainter Holiday, When Winds go round and round in Bands— And thrum open the Door, And Birds take places—overhead— To bear them Orchestra—
I crave Him grace of Summer Boughs— If such an Outcast be— Who never heard that fleshless Chant— Rise solemn on the Tree— As if some Caravan of Sound— Off Deserts in the Sky— Had parted Rank— Then knit and swept In Seamless Company—
Look out upon the stars, my love, And shame them with thine eyes, On which, than on the lights above, There hang more destinies. Night's beauty is the harmony Of blending shades and light; Then, lady, up,—look out, and be A sister to the night!
Sleep not! thine image wakes for aye Within my watching breast: Sleep not! from her soft sleep should fly Who robs all hearts of rest. Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break, And make this darkness gay With looks, whose brightness well might make Of darker nights a day.
—
—
0:00
0:00
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.