[RCL]

Hello computer geniuses! How can I scramble the words below, somewhat disguising they are a poem?

western
wind
when
wilt
thou
blow
the
small
rain
down
can
rain
christ
if
my
love
were
in
my
arms
and
i
in
my
bed
again

[Matt Q]

Something like this:
https://www.random.org/lists/

which yields:

bow
sown
my
rain
if
wind
bed
christ
arms
wilt
my
again
small
love
i
rain
in
were
thou
my
when
the
western
in
and
can


(I've assumed you wanted "can rain" separated)

[RCL]

Matt, thanks. That's news to me and exactly what I wanted. More on this later.

[Sarah-Jane Crowson]

In what context /how/why do you need to scramble them?

If it's for a generative poem (click on this button to reveal a word type thing) then using codepen or something like it might do the trick if you use a bit of javascript?

(I can't write javascript, btw, but I have used it by copying others' code)

Alternatively, depending on what you're wanting to do, perhaps a word cloud might work?

Sarah-Jane

(Aha - you've already found a solution - that's good)

[Kevin Rainbow]

"bow the small rain sown can rain"

Is this part already scrambled?

[Matt Q]

Something else you might like to play with is The Lazarus Corporation Text Mixing Desk v2.0

It's designed for creating cut-ups (which is what I use it for), and you can specify the "cut frequency", which is the size of the chunks of text it'll be chopped into before being mixed. Select "1 word" to fully randomize, just as the list randomizer above does. Or select, for example, "3 words" and the text will be cut after every third word and the order of the sections will be randomised. Switch off the "echo chamber" feature though. Never did see the point of that one.

-Matt

[Allen Tice]

In the original, “bow” is spelt “blow”.

[RCL]

Haste makes waste and speed kills. . .

Yeah, this one is too easy, but wait.

[RCL]

Thanks Jane.

I'll take a look at that, Matt.

[Brian Allgar]

And "sown" should be "down" ...