Lyric Poem · Friendship
How Human Nature dotes
How Human Nature dotes
On what it can't detect.
The moment that a Plot is plumbed
Prospective is extinct —
Prospective is the friend
Reserved for us to know
When Constancy is clarified
Of Curiosity —
Of subjects that resist
Redoubtablest is this
Where go we —
Go we anywhere
Creation after this?
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“How Human Nature dotes” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/how-human-nature-dotes
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).
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
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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