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Lyric Poem · Nature

One Sister have I in our house

by Emily Dickinson

1One Sister have I in our house,

2And one, a hedge away.

3There's only one recorded,

4But both belong to me.

5One came the road that I came —

6And wore my last year's gown —

7The other, as a bird her nest,

8Builded our hearts among.

9She did not sing as we did —

10It was a different tune —

11Herself to her a music

12As Bumble bee of June.

13Today is far from Childhood —

14But up and down the hills

15I held her hand the tighter —

16Which shortened all the miles —

17And still her hum

18The years among,

19Deceives the Butterfly;

20Still in her Eye

21The Violets lie

22Mouldered this many May.

23I spilt the dew —

24But took the morn —

25I chose this single star

26From out the wide night's numbers —

27Sue - forevermore!

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Quick facts

Poem
One Sister have I in our house
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Length
27 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Summer, Love

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
27 lines · 6 stanzas of 4–6 lines
End rhyme
No regular perfect end rhyme. The poem may still be using slant rhyme, assonance, or internal echo, which this check does not score.
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
PoetryDBOne Sister have I in our house 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 12931d80d960c11f
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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