Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.063 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.

The Hemlock

by Emily Dickinson

−0.6283 − 0.8697i

Drawing the boundary…

Long Last

by Philip Arthur Larkin

−0.5761 − 0.8336i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.

The Hemlock

by Emily Dickinson

I think the hemlock likes to stand
Upon a marge of snow;
It suits his own austerity,
And satisfies an awe

That men must slake in wilderness,
Or in the desert cloy, —
An instinct for the hoar, the bald,
Lapland's necessity.

The hemlock's nature thrives on cold;
The gnash of northern winds
Is sweetest nutriment to him,
His best Norwegian wines.

To satin races he is nought;
But children on the Don
Beneath his tabernacles play,
And Dnieper wrestlers run.

Long Last

by Philip Arthur Larkin

Suddenly, not long before 
Her eighty-first birthday,
The younger sister died 
Next morning, the elder lay 
Asking the open door 
Why it was light outside,

Since nobody had put on 
The kettle, or raked the ashes,
Or come to help her find 
The dark way through her dress 
This went on till nearly one 
Later, she hid behind

The gas stove 'Amy's gone,
Isn't she' they remember her saying, 
And 'No' when the married niece 
Told her the van was coming 
Her neck was leaf-brown 
She left cake on the mantelpiece.

This long last childhood 
Nothing provides for.
What can it do each day 
But hunt that imminent door 
Through which all that understood 
Has hidden away?

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