Poem fractal

The Cumberland

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

27 February 1807 to 24 March 1882 (~75)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

Encouraging compassion for hidden suffering and misunderstood reserve · Prose fiction

More remarks (4)

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. John Donne · −0.1394 − 0.4355i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  2. Charlotte Richardson · −0.1450 − 0.4442i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  3. William Cullen Bryant · −0.1855 − 0.4221i · 0.027 away · Compare side by side
  4. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · −0.1805 − 0.4429i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Dylan Thomas · −0.1958 − 0.4323i · 0.039 away · Compare side by side
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