Poem fractal

The Fire That Filled My Heart of Old

by James Thomson

23 November 1834 to 3 June 1882 (~48)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“Nature delights me in every form.”

Expressing an unreserved love of the natural world in all its aspects · Letter to Dr William Cranstoun, September 1725

More remarks (6)

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. Alfred Lord Tennyson · −0.0383 − 0.5751i · 0.005 away · Compare side by side
  2. Cecil Frances Alexander · −0.0381 − 0.5686i · 0.011 away · Compare side by side
  3. John Donne · −0.0482 − 0.5832i · 0.014 away · Compare side by side
  4. Eugene Field · −0.0262 − 0.5655i · 0.016 away · Compare side by side
  5. Alfred Lord Tennyson · −0.0563 − 0.5610i · 0.028 away · Compare side by side
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