Poem fractal
0.022 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.
by Richard Jago
0.1946 − 0.6485i
Drawing the boundary…
0.1932 − 0.6267i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by Richard Jago
With leaden foot Time creeps along
While Delia is away:
With her, nor plaintive was the song,
Nor tedious was the day.
Ah, envious Pow'r! reverse my doom;
Now double thy career,
Strain ev'ry nerve, stretch ev'ry plume,
And rest them when she's here!
Amarantha sweet and faire,
Ah brade no more that shining haire!
As my curious hand or eye,
Hovering round thee, let it flye.
Let it flye as unconfin'd
As it's calme ravisher, the winde,
Who hath left his darling, th' East,
To wanton o're that spicie neast.
Ev'ry tresse must be confest:
But neatly tangled at the best;
Like a clue of golden thread,
Most excellently ravelled.
Doe not then winde up that light
In ribands, and o'er-cloud in night,
Like the sun in's early ray;
But shake your head, and scatter day.
See, 'tis broke! within this grove,
The bower and the walkes of love,
Weary lye we downe and rest,
And fanne each other's panting breast.
Heere wee'll strippe and coole our fire,
In creame below, in milk-baths higher:
And when all wells are drawne dry,
I'll drink a teare out of thine eye.
Which our very joys shall leave,
That sorrowes thus we can deceive;
Or our very sorrowes weepe,
That joyes so ripe so little keepe.
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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