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Home  »  The Complete Poems  »  I

Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part One: Life

I

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.