Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.066 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.

Yesterday and To-Morrow

by John Boyle O'Reilly

−0.0169 + 0.9123i

Drawing the boundary…

The Wild Ride

by Louise Imogen Guiney

−0.0666 + 0.8689i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

Yesterday and To-Morrow

by John Boyle O'Reilly

Joys have three stages, Hoping, Having, and Had: 
The hands of Hope are empty, and the heart of Having is sad; 
For the joy we take, in the taking dies; and the joy we 
Had is its ghost. 
Now, which is the better—the joy unknown or the joy we have clasped and lost? 

The Wild Ride

by Louise Imogen Guiney

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.

Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle
Weather-worn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion,
With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him.

The trail is through dolour and dread, over crags and morasses;
There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:
What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding.

Thought's self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb,
And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam:
Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing.

A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle,
A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty:
We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers.

(I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses
All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses,
All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing.)

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind;
We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil.
Thou leadest, O God! All's well with Thy troopers that follow.

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