Success is Counted Sweetest

by Emily Dickinson

　　

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Success is Counted Sweetest is one of less than a dozen poems published during her lifetime, this one anonymously in 1864 in the Brooklyn Daily Union. Dickinson's sister found over eighteen hundred poems after her death, most of which were published posthumously.

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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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Success is Counted Sweetest was featured as TheShort Story of the Day on Thu, Apr 28, 2022

　　

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This poem is featured in our selection of 100 Great Poems

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