Steer, hither steer your winged pines, All beaten mariners! Here lie Love's undiscover'd mines, A prey to passengers— Perfumes far sweeter than the best Which make the Phoenix' urn and nest. Fear not your ships, Nor any to oppose you save our lips; But come on shore, Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten more.
For swelling waves our panting breasts, Where never storms arise, Exchange, and be awhile our guests: For stars gaze on our eyes. The compass Love shall hourly sing, And as he goes about the ring, We will not miss To tell each point he nameth with a kiss. —Then come on shore, Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten more.
I will arise and go hence to the west, And dig me a grave where the hill-winds call; But O were I dead, were I dust, the fall Of my own love's footstep would break my rest!
My heart in my bosom is black as a sloe! I heed not cuckoo, nor wren, nor swallow: Like a flying leaf in the sky's blue hollow The heart in my breast is, that beats so low.
Because of the words your lips have spoken, (O dear black head that I must not follow) My heart is a grave that is stripped and hollow, As ice on the water my heart is broken.
O lips forgetful and kindness fickle, The swallow goes south with you: I go west Where fields are empty and scythes at rest. I am the poppy and you the sickle; My heart is broken within my breast.
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Track 1
How this picture is made
What a fractal is
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.
How the boundary is drawn
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.
What the branching signifies
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.