Success is counted sweetest

Some Emily Dickinson verse ...

... this is one of the few poems she saw published (albeit, anonymously) during her lifetime - taken from the pictured 1997 collection:


Success is counted sweetest

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 today
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!

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Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886)

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