Dark red roses in a honeyed wind swinging, Silk-soft hollyhock, coloured like the moon; Larks high overhead lost in light, and singing; That's the way of June.
Dark red roses in the warm wind falling, Velvet leaf by velvet leaf, all the breathless noon; Far-off sea-waves calling, calling, calling; That's the way of June.
Sweet as scarlet strawberry under wet leaves hidden, Honeyed as the damask rose, lavish as the moon, Shedding lovely light on things forgotten, hope forbidden — That's the way of June.
He lives his lonely life, and when he dies A thousand hearts maybe will utter sighs; Because they liked his songs, and now their bird Sleeps with his head beneath his wing, unheard.
But what kind hand will tend his grave, and bring Those blossoms there, of which he used to sing? Who'll kiss his mound, and wish the time would come To lie with him inside that silent tomb?
And who'll forget the dreamer's skill, and shed A tear because a loving heart is dead? Heigh ho for gossip then, and common sighs— And let his death bring tears in no one's eyes.
—
—
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.