Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.005 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 Baite

by John Donne

−0.2965 − 0.3999i

Drawing the boundary…

Striking

by Charles Stuart Calverley

−0.3011 − 0.4026i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

The Baite

by John Donne

Come live with mee, and bee my love,
And wee will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and christall brookes,
With silken lines, and silver hookes.

There will the river whispering runne 
Warm'd by thy eyes, more then the Sunne.
And there the'inamor'd fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.

When thou wilt swimme in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channell hath, 
Will amorously to thee swimme,
Gladder to catch thee, then thou him.

If thou, to be so seene, beest loath,
By Sunne, or Moone, thou darknest both,
And if my selfe have leave to see, 
I need not their light, having thee.

Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legges, with shells and weeds,
Or treacherously poore fish beset,
With strangling snare, or windowie net: 

Let coarse bold hands, from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest,
Or curious traitors, sleavesilke flies
Bewitch poore fishes wandring eyes.

For thee, thou needst no such deceit, 
For thou thy selfe art thine owne bait;
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas, is wiser farre then I.

Striking

by Charles Stuart Calverley

It was a railway passenger,
And he lept out jauntilie.
"Now up and bear, thou stout portèr,
My two chattèls to me.

"Bring hither, bring hither my bag so red,
And portmanteau so brown:
(They lie in the van, for a trusty man
He labelled them London town:)

"And fetch me eke a cabman bold,
That I may be his fare, his fare;
And he shall have a good shilling,
If by two of the clock he do me bring
To the Terminus, Euston Square."

"Now,—so to thee the saints alway,
Good gentleman, give luck,—
As never a cab may I find this day,
For the cabman wights have struck:

And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn,
Or else at the Dog and Duck,
Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin,
The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin
Right pleasantly they do suck."

"Now rede me aright, thou stout portèr,
What were it best that I should do:
For woe is me, an' I reach not there
Or ever the clock strike two."

"I have a son, a lytel son;
Fleet is his foot as the wild roebuck's:
Give him a shilling, and eke a brown,
And he shall carry thy fardels down
To Euston, or half over London town,
On one of the station trucks."

Then forth in a hurry did they twain fare,
The gent, and the son of the stout portèr,
Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair,
Through all the mire and muck:
"A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray:
For by two of the clock must I needs away."
"That may hardly be," the clerk did say,
"For indeed—the clocks have struck."

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