For trewthe telleth that loue . is triacle of hevene; May no synne be on him sene . that useth that spise, And alle his werkes he wrougte . with loue as him liste; And lered it Moises for the levest thing . and moste like to heuene, And also the plante of pees . moste precious of vertues. For hevene myghte noughte holden it · it was so hevy of hym-self, Tyl it hadde of the erthe . yeten his fylle, And whan it haved of this folde . flesshe and blode taken, Was neuere leef upon lynde . lighter ther-after, And portatyf and persant . as the poynt of a nedle, That myghte non armure it lette . ne none heigh walles. For-thi is love leder . of the lordes folke of hevene, And a mene, as the maire is . bitwene the kyng and the comune; Right so is love a ledere . and the lawe shapeth, Upon man for his mysdedes . the merciment he taxeth. And for to knowe it kyndely · it comseth bi myght, And in the herte, there is the hevede . and the heigh welle.
I make a garland here of water-flowers Gathered in quiet hours From banks that Liris hourly eats away: From fields that hear all day The plaint of Simois for boyhood dead. From almond-boughs o'erhead I pluck some mocking blossoms: and a spray Of euphrasy, That I may see on every leafless tree The promise of its later royalty Of mellow apples, or its summer dower Of scarlet thorn or purple Judas-flower. I make my garland here, and set between Pale poplar leaves and Pan's own parsley green From battle-fields where Nike has not been. I lift my finished wreath, but make my prayer Neither to Jove nor Venus: nor have care To plead to Juno, that my unbound hair The yellow veil may bear. But I make humble prayer To Pan, who gives the squirrel winter store, Who bids the reeds grow by the river-shore: That he will stand before My joy and grief, And that my withered leaf He gather up into his sunburned hand. For joy and grief and hope Pan also knew, And he hath care to-day for maid and man That Love has yet forborne to bless or ban: For once in fields that knew no mortal feet He harvested Love's wheat, in Love's own land. Therefore, my wreath that's pale and little sweet I cast before Pan's feet.
—
—
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.