Poem fractal

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0.009 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.

Song of the Red Republican

by Gerald Massey

−0.2400 + 0.6979i

Drawing the boundary…

The Shepherd of the Sea

by Nora Hopper Chesson

−0.2308 + 0.6979i

Drawing the boundary…

The poems

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

Song of the Red Republican

by Gerald Massey

Fling out the red Banner! its fiery front under,
Come, gather ye, gather ye, Champions of Right!
And roll round the world, with the voice of God's thunder,
The Wrongs we've to reckon, oppressions to smite.
They deem that we strike no more like the old Hero-band,
Victory's own battle-hearted and brave:
Blood of Christ! brothers mine, it were sweet but to see ye stand,
Triumph or Tomb welcome, Glory or Grave!

Fling out the red Banner in mountain and valley!
Let Earth feel the tread of the free once again;
Now soldiers of Freedom, for love of God, rally,
Old Earth yearns to know that her children are Men.
We are nerved by a thousand wrongs, burning and bleeding,
Bold Thoughts leap to birth, but the bold Deeds must come;
And wherever Humanity's yearning and pleading,
One battle for Liberty strike we heart-home.

Fling out the red Banner! achievements immortal
Have yet to be won by the hands labour-brown;
And few, few may enter the proud promise-portal,
Yet wear it in thought like a glorious Crown!
O joy of the onset! sound trumpet, array us;
True hearts would leap up were all hell in our path;
Up, up from the Slave-land; who stirreth to stay us,
Shall fall, as of old, in the Red Sea of wrath.

Fling out the red Banner, O Sons of the morning!
Young spirits abiding to burst into wings,—
We stand shadow-crown'd, but sublime is the warning,
All heaven's grimly husht, and the Bird of Storm sings!
"All's well," saith the Sentry on Tyranny's tower,
While Hope by his watch-fire is grey and tear-blind;
Ay all's well! Freedom's Altar burns, hour by hour,
Live brands for the fire-damp with which ye are mined.

Fling out the red Banner! the patriots perish,
But where their bones whiten the seed striketh root:
Their blood hath run red the great harvest to cherish:
Then gather ye, Reapers, and garner the fruit.
Victory! victory! Tyrants are quaking!
The Titan of Toil from the bloody thrall starts;
The slaves are awaking, the dawn-light is breaking,
The foot-fall of Freedom beats quick at our hearts!

The Shepherd of the Sea

by Nora Hopper Chesson

I am a mighty shepherd, and many are my flocks; 
I lead them, I feed them among the weedy rocks. 
My shepherd's crook is fashioned out of a Norway pine. 
And there's no sheep-dog in the world will herd these flocks of mine. 

My fold is wide, and day and night the walls shift of my fold,
No upland, no lowland my lambing ewes withhold
From the cry of their shepherd, the beckoning of his hand;
For my own desert places they leave the pastureland. 

With wild white fleeces surging about me to my knee, 
I go about my herding, the Shepherd of the Sea; 
I call to the rock-pastures the white sheep of the waves,
For they but find their grazing where sailors find their graves. 

I am a mighty shepherd, and mighty flocks have I; 
I lead them, I feed them while stars are in the sky; 
And when the moon is waning on sheltered shore and lee, 
I rest not nor slumber, the Shepherd of the Sea.

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