Oh, would I were the golden light That shines around thee now, As slumber shades the spotless white Of that unclouded brow! It watches through each changeful dream Thy features' varied play; It meets thy waking eyes' soft gleam By dawn—by opening day.
Oh, would I were the crimson veil Above thy couch of snow, To dye that cheek so soft, so pale, With my reflected glow! Oh, would I were the cord of gold Whose tassel set with pearls Just meets the silken covering's fold And rests upon thy curls,
Dishevelled in thy rosy sleep, And shading soft thy dreams; Across their bright and raven sweep The golden tassel gleams! I would be anything for thee, My love—my radiant love— A flower, a bird, for sympathy, A watchful star above.
There is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all: And where it cometh, all things are; And it cometh everywhere.
I am owner of the sphere, Of the seven stars and the solar year, Of Caesar's hand, and Plato's brain, Of Lord Christ's heart, and Shakspeare's strain.
—
—
0:00
0:00
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.