Poem fractal

Unprofitableness

by Henry Vaughan

17 April 1621 to 23 April 1695 (~74)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Holy writing must strive (by all means) for perfection and true holiness, that a door may be opened to him in heaven.”

On the spiritual requirement for sacred poetry · Author's Preface to Silex Scintillans (1655)

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. Richard Lovelace · −0.2528 + 0.9259i · 0.036 away · Compare side by side
  2. Dylan Thomas · −0.2222 + 0.9190i · 0.056 away · Compare side by side
  3. T. S. Eliot · −0.2751 + 0.9550i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
  4. James Oppenheim · −0.2736 + 0.9553i · 0.058 away · Compare side by side
  5. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson · −0.3170 + 0.9519i · 0.069 away · Compare side by side
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