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Lyric Poem · Friendship

How Human Nature dotes

by Emily Dickinson

1How Human Nature dotes

2On what it can't detect.

3The moment that a Plot is plumbed

4Prospective is extinct —

5Prospective is the friend

6Reserved for us to know

7When Constancy is clarified

8Of Curiosity —

9Of subjects that resist

10Redoubtablest is this

11Where go we —

12Go we anywhere

13Creation after this?

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Quick facts

Poem
How Human Nature dotes
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Length
13 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Friendship

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape
13 lines · 3 stanzas of 4–5 lines
Line length
Mostly 6-syllable lines (trimeter length).
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.

Author record
Emily Dickinson1830–1886
Source record
PoetryDBHow Human Nature dotes by emily-dickinson, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision
Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record
Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint
SHA-256 6512d2c0b6d735f9
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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