Poem fractal

Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids

by William Cullen Bryant

3 November 1794 to 12 June 1878 (~84)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“The best riches of the earth are produced on its surface, and we need no reasoning to teach us the folly of a people who should leave its harvest ungathered to dig for its ores.”

A metaphor for recognising wisdom that lies plainly before us · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

More remarks (68)

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. Arthur O'Shaughnessy · −0.2483 − 0.5261i · 0.006 away · Compare side by side
  2. Anne Knish · −0.2469 − 0.5405i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  3. Edna St. Vincent Millay · −0.2365 − 0.5324i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  4. W. H. Davies · −0.2497 − 0.5163i · 0.015 away · Compare side by side
  5. Lady Nairne · −0.2582 − 0.5464i · 0.018 away · Compare side by side
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