Poem fractal
0.028 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.
−0.2108 − 0.0345i
Drawing the boundary…
by Violet Fane
−0.1853 − 0.0452i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
What has he in this glorious world's domain?
Unreckoned loss which he counts up for gain,
Unreckoned shame, of which he feels no stain,
Unreckoned dead he does not know were slain.
What things does he take with him when he dies?
Nothing of all that he on earth did prize:
Unto his grovelling feet and sordid eyes
How difficult and empty seem the skies!
by Violet Fane
Do not forget me! when the day is ending,
And dark'ning shadows gather o'er the sea;
Sometimes alone, and near this casement bending,
Pause in the twilight and remember me!
Think on the brightness of the summer weather,
Years, years ago, one well-remember'd day,
When to the woods we wander'd forth together,
Amongst the primroses and blue bells gay.
Time changes all! those blossoms now are faded,
Or, if they bloom, they do not seem as fair
As once before, when, by the beech-trees shaded,
You twined them tenderly amongst my hair.
I dash away the tear, that all unbidden
Arises, when I think that this is past,
And muse on all my anxious heart has hidden
Since the sad ev'ning when I saw you last!
Earth has enough of heav'n to gild its sorrow
And turn the current of its griefs away,
Could we but learn to dread no dark To-morrow,
And live for ever in one glad To-day!
Whilst I have mused in solitude and sadness
On all the changes fleeting time can bring,
Others have hallow'd to you, with their gladness,
The happy hours of many another Spring.
All this I know, yet when the shadows darken,
And when none other better loved is by
To mark your silent mood, perchance, or hearken
To the soft echo of a half-heaved sigh;
Then lend to me that hour of soft emotion,
And link'd in spirit let us leave the shore,
And floating o'er the dark mysterious ocean,
Be unto one another as before!
Do not forget me! when the day is ending,
And dark'ning shadows linger o'er the sea,
Sometimes alone, and near this casement bending,
Pause in the twilight and remember me!
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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