Poem fractal

For One Departing

by Charles Wesley

18 December 1707 to 29 March 1788 (~81)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“God buries his workmen, but carries on his work.”

On the continuity of divine purpose beyond individual human lives · As commonly attributed

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. Robert Burns · 0.0985 − 0.5581i · 0.013 away · Compare side by side
  2. John Sheffield · 0.1005 − 0.5546i · 0.017 away · Compare side by side
  3. D. H. Lawrence · 0.0883 − 0.5850i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
  4. George Herbert · 0.0723 − 0.5646i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
  5. Robert Burns · 0.0714 − 0.5838i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
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