When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried, When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died, We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an aeon or two, Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!
And those who were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair; They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's hair; They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalene, Peter and Paul; They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all.
And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame; And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame; But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!
My purse is yours, Sweet Heart, for I Can count no coins with you close by; I scorn like sailors them, when they Have drawn on shore their deep-sea pay; Only my thoughts I value now, Which, like the simple glowworms, throw Their beams to greet thee bravely, Love— Their glorious light in Heaven above. Since I have felt thy waves of light, Beating against my soul, the sight Of gems from Afric's continent Move me to no great wonderment. Since I, Sweet Heart, have known thine hair, The fur of ermine, sable, bear, Or silver fox, for me can keep No more to praise than common sheep. Though ten Isaiahs' souls were mine, They could not sing such charms as thine. Two little hands that show with pride, Two timid, little feet that hide; Two eyes no dark Senoras show Their burning like in Mexico; Two coral gates wherein is shown Your queen of charms, on a white throne; Your queen of charms, the lovely smile That on its white throne could beguile The mastiff from his gates in hell; Who by no whine or bark could tell His masters what thing made him go— And countless other charms I know. October's hedge has far less hues Than thou hast charms from which to choose.
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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.