Poem fractal

A Death Song

by William Morris

24 March 1834 to 3 October 1896 (~62)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”

It presents attentive engagement with ordinary experience as a source of happiness. · Essay, Hopes and Fears for Art

More remarks (2)

Drawing the boundary…

Read the poem Another poem

A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. A poem can be drawn the same way.

The poem’s constant is read from the build of its lines: their length, the size of the stanzas, and the share of vowels. Poems whose constants lie closer together are built more alike. The same poem always draws the same picture. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.

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.

Poems nearby in the constant

A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.

  1. Rudyard Kipling · 0.1944 + 0.2545i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  2. Ralph Waldo Emerson · 0.1796 + 0.2314i · 0.019 away · Compare side by side
  3. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt · 0.2061 + 0.2151i · 0.026 away · Compare side by side
  4. Edgar Lee Masters · 0.1793 + 0.2647i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Fergusson · 0.1626 + 0.2348i · 0.035 away · Compare side by side
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