Poem fractal
0.042 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 John Donne
0.0000 + 0.5051i
Drawing the boundary…
−0.0422 + 0.5021i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
by John Donne
For the first twenty years, since yesterday
I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away,
For forty more, I fed on favors past,
And forty on hopes that thou wouldst, they might last.
Tears drowned one hundred, and sighs blew out two,
A thousand, I did neither think, nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you;
Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life; but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal; Can ghosts die?
By hope and fear, by grief and joy opprest,
With deadly hate, more deadly love infected;
Without, within, in body, soul, distrest;
Little by all, least by my self respected,
But most, most there, where most I lov'd, neglected;
Hated, and hating life, to death I call;
Who scorns to take what is refus'd by all.
Whither, ah, whither then wilt thou betake thee,
Despised wretch, of friends, of all forlorn,
Since hope, and love, and life, and death forsake thee?
Poore soul, thy own tormenter, others scorn!
Whither, poore soul, ah, whither wilt thou turn?
What inne, what host (scorn'd wretch) wilt thou now chuse
The common host, and inne, death, grave, refuse thee.
To thee, great Love, to thee I prostrate fall,
That right'st in love the heart in false love swerved:
On thee, true Love, on thee I weeping call;
I, who am scorn'd, where with all truth I served,
On thee, so wrong'd, where thou hast so deserved:
Disdain'd, where most I lov'd, to thee I plain me,
Who truly lovest those, who (fools) disdain thee.
Thou never-erring Way, in thee direct me;
Thou Death of death, oh, in thy death engrave me:
Thou hated Love, with thy firm love respect me;
Thou freest Servant, from this yoke unslave me:
Glorious Salvation, for thy glory save me.
So neither love, nor hate, scorn, death, shall move me;
But with thy love, great Love, I still shall love thee.
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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