Poem fractal

Side by side

Random

0.004 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.

Jock

by Banjo Paterson

−0.4459 − 0.0091i

Drawing the boundary…

Life

by Lord Byron

−0.4462 − 0.0127i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

Jock

by Banjo Paterson

There's a soldier that's been doing of his share
In the fighting up and down and round about.
He's continually marching here and there
And he's fighting, morning in and morning out.

The Boer, you see, he generally runs;
But sometimes when he hides behind a rock,
And we can't make no impression with the guns,
Oh, then you'll hear the order, 'Send for Jock!'

Yes, it's Jock — Scotch Jock.
He's the fellow that can give or take a knock.
For he's hairy and he's hard,
And his feet are by the yard,
And his face is like the face what's on a clock.
But when the bullets fly you will mostly hear the cry —
'Send for Jock!'

The Cavalry have gun and sword and lance,
Before they choose their weapon, why, they're dead.
The Mounted Fut are hampered in advance
By holding of their helmets on their head.

And when the Boer has dug himself a trench
And placed his Maxim gun behind a rock,
These mounted heroes — pets of Johnny French —
They have to sit and wait and send for Jock!

Yes, the Jocks — Scotch Jocks,
With their music that'd terrify an ox!
When the bullets kick the sand
You can hear the sharp command —
'Forty-Second! At the double! Charge the rocks!'
And the charge is like a flood
When they've warmed the Highland blood
Of the Jocks!

Life

by Lord Byron

(Don Juan, Canto xv. Stanza 99.) 

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, 
'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. 
How little do we know that which we are! 
How less what we may be! The eternal surge 
Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar 
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, 
Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the graves 
Of empires heave but like some passing waves.

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