Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.016 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 Hackney Coachman

by Hannah More

0.0465 + 0.3124i

Drawing the boundary…

A Valediction: of weeping

by John Donne

0.0374 + 0.3251i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

The Hackney Coachman

by Hannah More

I am a bold Coachman, and drive a good hack,
With a coat of five capes that quite covers my back;
And my wife keeps a sausage-shop, not many miles
From the narrowest alley in all Broad St Giles.

Though poor, we are honest and very content,
We pay as we go for meat, drink, and for rent;
To work all the week I am able and willing,
I never get drunk, and I waste not a shilling.

And while at a tavern my gentleman tarries,
The coachman grows richer than he whom he carries;
And I’d rather (said I), since it saves me from sin,
Be the driver without, than the toper within.

Yet though dram-shops I hate, and the dram-drinking friend,
I’m not quite so good but I wish I may mend;
I repent of my sins, since we all are depraved,
For a coachman, I hold, has a soul to be saved.

When a riotous multitude fills up a street,
And the greater part know not, boys, wherefore they meet;
If I see there is mischief, I never go there,
Let others get tipsy so I get my fare.

Now to church, if I take some good lady to pray,
It grieves me full sore to be kept quite away;
So I step within side, though the sermon’s begun,
For a slice of the service is better than none.

Then my glasses are whole, and my coach is so neat,
I am always the first to be called in the street;
And I’m known by the name (’tis a name rather rare)
Of the coachman that never asks more than his fare.

Though my beasts should be dull, yet I don’t use them ill;
Though they stumble I swear not, nor cut them up hill;
For I firmly believe there’s no charm in an oath
That can make a nag trot, when to walk he is loath.

And though I’m a coachman, I’ll freely confess,
I beg of my Maker my labours to bless;
I praise Him each morning, and pray every night,
And ’tis this makes my heart feel so cheerful and light.

When I drive to a funeral I care not for drink;
That is not the moment to guzzle, but think;
And I wish I could add both of coachman and master,
That both of us strove to amend a bit faster.

A Valediction: of weeping

by John Donne

Let me powre forth
My teares before thy face, whil'st I stay here,
For thy face coines them, and thy stampe they beare,
And by this Mintage they are something worth,
For thus they bee 
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much griefe they are, emblemes of more,
When a teare falls, that thou falst which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a divers shore.

On a round ball 
A workeman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afrique, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, All,
So doth each teare,
Which thee doth weare, 
A globe, yea world by that impression grow,
Till thy teares mixt with mine doe overflow
This world, by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.

O more then Moone,
Draw not up seas to drowne me in thy spheare, 
Weepe me not dead, in thine armes, but forbeare
To teach the sea, what it may doe too soone;
Let not the winde
Example finde,
To doe me more harme, then it purposeth; 
Since thou and I sigh one anothers breath,
Who e'r sighes most, is cruellest, and hasts the others death.

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