Cupid and my Campaspe play'd At cards for kisses—Cupid paid: He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows, His mother's doves, and team of sparrows; Loses them too; then down he throws The coral of his lips, the rose Growing on's cheek (but none knows how); With these, the crystal of his brow, And then the dimple of his chin: All these did my Campaspe win. At last he set her both his eyes— She won, and Cupid blind did rise. O Love! has she done this for thee? What shall, alas! become of me?
There was born to the world last night A woman-child for the world's delight. Her mouth was small as a rosebud is Before the bee and the blossom kiss; Her hair was a cloud and her eyes were fire. Her hands were full of delight and desire. Her cheek was a rose full blossoming. Her voice was honey, her tongue a sting.
Before the night took thought of the day The child was born — with a caul, they say. The caul shall serve her in place of a charm, That water and fire shall not do her harm. The child was born to bring all men grief. Hunger and thirsting beyond relief. An ill star shone on the bitter morn When the mother died and the child was bom.
She shall be christened with water of tears. With doubtful pleasure and trembling fears; We will name her Helen, that she shall be A warning, a wonder 'twixt sea and sea. Though the waves o'erwhelm her, she shall not drown. She shall not burn in the burning town: Except she burn of her own white fire. The world's disaster, the world's desire.
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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.