"One Sister have I in our house" By Emily Dickinson [Analysis]

One Sister have I in our house,[1] And one, a hedge away.[2] There's only one recorded,[3] But both belong to me.[4] One came the road that I came --[5] And wore my last year's gown --[6] The other, as a bird her nest,[7] Builded our hearts among.[8] She did not sing as we did --[9] It was a different tune --[10] Herself to her a music[11] As Bumble bee of June.[12] Today is far from Childhood --[13] But up and down the hills[14] I held her hand the tighter --[15] Which shortened all the miles --[16] And still her hum[17] The years among,[18] Deceives the Butterfly;[19] Still in her Eye[20] The Violets lie[21] Mouldered this many May.[22] I spilt the dew --[23] But took the morn --[24] I chose this single star[25] From out the wide night's numbers --[26] Sue - forevermore![27]
Poem 14 [F5] "One sister have I in the house" Analysis by David Preest [Poem]

The poem is the whole of a letter (L197) to Sue, perhaps sent to her as a greeting on her twenty-eighth birthday, 19 December 1858. If so, Austin and Sue by that time had been living in the Evergreens, next door to Emily at the Homestead, for two and a half years. It cannot have been easy for Emily to have the two people whom she loved the most married to each other and living only a hedge away from herself and her younger sister, Vinnie. Does Emily put a completely brave face on the situation in this poem? Or does she allow some of her anxiety to show through? Anxiety has been seen in the third and fifth stanzas, but not necessarily so. Admittedly the third stanza shows Sue as different from the Dickinsons and singing a music which is not theirs, but differences can enrich as well as mar a relationship. The difficulty with seeing anxiety in the fifth stanza is that it is joined by 'and' to 'I held her hand the tighter - /Which shortened all the miles.' So it could be that Emily is saying that still Sue's music enchants the Butterfly and that still several Mays later her eyes have a

violet gleam. Certainly, if any anxiety has been expressed, it is triumphantly cast aside in the ecstatic last stanza.
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