Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.036 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.

Fade, Flow'rs!

by Edmund Waller

0.1866 + 0.2732i

Drawing the boundary…

A Death Song

by William Morris

0.1971 + 0.2392i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

Fade, Flow'rs!

by Edmund Waller

Fade, Flow'rs! fade, Nature will have it so;
'Tis but what we must in our autumn do!
And as your leaves lie quiet on the ground,
The loss alone by those that lov'd them found;
So in the grave shall we as quiet lie,
Miss'd by some few that lov'd our company;
But some so like to thorns and nettles live,
That none for them can, when they perish, grieve.

A Death Song

by William Morris

What cometh here from west to east awending?
And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?
We bear the message that the rich are sending
Aback to those who bade them wake and know.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.

We ask them for a life of toilsome earning,
They bade us bide their leisure for our bread;
We crave to speak to tell our woeful learning:
We come back speechless, bearing back our dead.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.

They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken.
They turn their faces from the eyes of fate;
Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken.
But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.

Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison;
Amidst the storm he won a prisoner's rest;
But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen
Brings us our day of work to win the best.
Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,
But one and all if they would dusk the day.

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