Success
by Emily Dickinson
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory,
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear.
Posttext: Published in A Masque of Poets
at the
request of H. H.,
the author's fellow-townswoman and friend.
Source:
PoemsCopyright 1890
Little, Brown, And Company, Boston