Wearied by common intercourse I stare, Beyond this murmurous room, grown unaware Of all the frothy words which flow, in a flood, Over my head: the mind drowned deep Answers in ayes and noes as if asleep: But deeper than the intellectual reach Of wordy speech my hearkening blood Hears, from a neighbouring wood, The cuckoo's cry.
I listen, and a man that is not I Listens; our kindred sense now gone Back to an age of stone: And back, and back, until with dumb accord We understand the cuckoo's wordless word; Which, in a moment shattering space and time Upon a rhyme, Bids us accept the wisdom of this mood And recognise, in silence, our own solitude.
The crow—the crow! the great black crow! He cares not to meet us wherever we go; He cares not for man, beast, friend, nor foe, For nothing will eat him he well doth know. Know—know! you great black crow! It's a comfort to feel like a great black crow!
The crow—the crow! the great black crow! He loves the fat meadow—his taste is low; He loves the fat worms, and he dines in a row With fifty fine cousins all black as a sloe. Sloe—sloe! you great black crow! But it's jolly to fare like a great black crow!
The crow—the crow! the great black crow! He never gets drunk on the rain or snow; He never gets drunk, but he never says no! If you press him to tipple ever so. So—so! you great black crow! It's an honour to soak like a great black crow!
The crow—the crow! the great black crow! He lives for a hundred year and mo'; He lives till he dies, and he dies as slow As the morning mists down the hill that go. Go—go! you great black crow! But it's fine to live and die like a great black crow!
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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.