Emily Dickinson's 'Success is Counted Sweetest'

SUCCESS IS COUNTED SWEETEST (the text)

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
Burst agonized and clear!

Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Success is Counted Sweetest’ is a short but a very meaningful poem. In the very first stanza she illustrates the universal truth – we value a thing the most when we don’t possess it ourselves. Success is the sweetest thing for those who fail and only that person can know what nectar is and what its true value is, who is in dire need of it.
The poet has used the scene of a battle that is over. She first talks of the side that has won. Not even one of the soldiers of the army of the winning side can so clearly define victory as the one belonging to the army that lost the battle.
In the third stanza, in continuity of the second stanza, she writes the soldier who is lying on the ground and dying can define victory in the most definite terms. The sounds and music of the celebrations of the winning army fall upon his hears – he can clearly hear the sound that is agonizing for him. Dickinson writes “forbidden ear” – forbidden because he has not qualified (by winning) for being able to listen to the sounds of victory.