Poem fractal
0.017 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.
0.1109 − 0.8284i
Drawing the boundary…
by William Browne, of Tavistock
0.1233 − 0.8168i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
In lands I never saw—they say,
Immortal Alps look down—
Whose Bonnets touch the firmament—
Whose sandals touch the town—
Meek at whose everlasting feet
A myriad Daisy play—
Which, sir, are you, and which am I,
Upon an August day?
by William Browne, of Tavistock
Shall I tell you whom I love?
Hearken then awhile to me;
And if such a woman move
As I now shall versify,
Be assur’d, ’tis she, or none
That I love, and love alone.
Nature did her so much right,
As she scorns the help of art.
In as many virtues dight
As e’er yet embrac’d a heart.
So much good so truly tried,
Some for less were deified.
Wit she hath, without desire
To make known how much she hath;
And her anger flames no higher
Than may fitly sweeten wrath.
Full of pity as may be,
Though perhaps not so to me.
Reason masters every sense,
And her virtues grace her birth;
Lovely as all excellence,
Modest in her most of mirth;
Likelihood enough to prove
Only worth could kindle love.
Such she is: and if you know
Such a one as I have sung,
Be she brown, or fair, or so,
That she be but somewhile young;
Be assur’d, ’tis she, or none
That I love, and love alone.
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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