Success is counted sweetest

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Success is counted sweetest by Emily Dickinson
67

POEMS.

I.

SUCCESS.

[Published in "A Masque of Poets" at the request of
"H. H.," the author's fellow-townswoman and friend]

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.