Regret
One asked of regret,
And I made reply:
To have held the bird,
And let it fly;
To have seen the star
For a moment nigh,
And lost it
Through a slothful eye;
To have plucked the flower
And cast it by;
To have one only hope—
To die.
Poem fractal
0.031 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.
0.1651 − 0.7757i
Drawing the boundary…
by Charles Lamb
0.1427 − 0.7549i
Drawing the boundary…
Each poem scrolls on its own, so the two texts stay beside each other.
One asked of regret,
And I made reply:
To have held the bird,
And let it fly;
To have seen the star
For a moment nigh,
And lost it
Through a slothful eye;
To have plucked the flower
And cast it by;
To have one only hope—
To die.
by Charles Lamb
Can I, all-gracious Providence,
Can I deserve Thy care?
Ah, no! I’ve not the least pretence
To bounties which I share.
Have I not been defended still
From dangers and from death;
Been safe preserved from every ill
E’er since Thou gav’st me breath?
I live once more to see the day
That brought me first to light;
O teach my willing heart the way
To take Thy mercies right.
Though dazzling splendour, pomp, and show
My fortune has denied;
Yet more than grandeur can bestow
Content hath well supplied.
I envy no one’s birth or fame,
Their titles, train, or dress;
Nor has my pride e’er stretched its aim
Beyond what I possess.
I ask and wish not to appear
More beauteous, rich, or gay:
Lord, make me wiser every year,
And better every day.
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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