Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.051 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.

The Will

by John Donne

0.4715 + 0.3151i

Drawing the boundary…

One Way of Love

by Nora Hopper Chesson

0.4878 + 0.3636i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.

The Will

by John Donne

Before I sigh my last gaspe, let me breath,
Great love, some Legacies; Here I bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus , if mine eyes can see,
If they be blinde, then Love, I give them thee;
My tongue to Fame; to'Embassadours mine eares; 
To women or the sea, my teares.
Thou, Love, hast taught mee heretofore
By making mee serve her who'had twenty more,
That I should give to none, but such, as had too much before.

My constancie I to the planets give; 
My truth to them, who at the Court doe live;
Mine ingenuity and opennesse,
To Jesuites; to Buffones my pensivenesse;
My silence to'any, who abroad hath beene;
My mony to a Capuchin. 
Thou Love taught'st me, by appointing mee
To love there, where no love receiv'd can be,
Onely to give to such as have an incapacitie.

My faith I give to Roman Catholiques;
All my good works unto the Schismaticks 
Of Amsterdam; my best civility
And Courtship, to an Universitie;
My modesty I give to souldiers bare;
My patience let gamesters share.
Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee 
Love her that holds my love disparity,
Onely to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those
Which were my friends; Mine industrie to foes;
To Schoolemen I bequeath my doubtfulnesse; 
My sicknesse to Physitians, or excesse;
To Nature, all that I in Ryme have writ;
And to my company my wit.
Thou Love, by making mee adore
Her, who begot this love in mee before, 
Taughtst me to make, as though I gave, when I did but restore.

To him for whom the passing bell next tolls,
I give my physick bookes; my writen rowles
Of Morall counsels, I to Bedlam give;
My brazen medals, unto them which live 
In want of bread; To them which passe among
All forrainers, mine English tongue.
Thou, Love, by making mee love one
Who thinkes her friendship a fit portion
For yonger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion. 

Therefore I'll give no more; But I'll undoe
The world by dying; because love dies too.
Then all your beauties will bee no more worth
Then gold in Mines, where none doth draw it forth;
And all your graces no more use shall have 
Then a Sun dyall in a grave.
Thou Love taughtst mee, by making mee
Love her, who doth neglect both mee and thee,
To'invent, and practise this one way, to'annihilate all three.

One Way of Love

by Nora Hopper Chesson

How do I love you, Dear? 
I love you as the moonlight loves the mere 
That all the day waits for it, and keeps close 
Its beauty from the bold eyes of the sun.
But when the day-flower shuts and night's begun 
Under the moonlight wakes the dreaming mere. 
Drinks the soft light, and draws its beauty in; 
Opens and beats and glows — 
A white rose made of water, yea, a rose. 

Yours is a subtler music than my ear 
Can follow into silence when I hear. 
Yours is a rarer colour than one traces 
On a dove's breast, or in the windflowers' faces. 
More strange of scent is this your water-rose 
And deeper-hearted than the moonlight knows 
Perhaps. But in your dark moods and your clear,
Your sweetness and your sorrow and your sin, 
Your doubt, your toil, your idleness, your fear, 
I see them all; and love you always, Dear. 

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