[687] Success is counted sweetest

Guest poem submitted by Ashwin Mahalingam, <gandalf@>:

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.

	-- Emily Dickinson

(1864)

When I first read this poem (in 6th grade) I was cynical enough to scoff at
it. However, like most of us I have 'been there' often enough to know that
the feeling of being 'so near and yet so far', agonizingly brings home the
point that it is in defeat that we truly learn to appreciate victory - so
much so, that the more the defeats, the sweeter the success.
  In a competition of the sort that Dickinson writes about, where there are
winners and losers, to accept a win is to accept the concept of a loss. For
by the very nature of the contest, there can be no definition of a win that
does not imply the definition of the loss. The knowledge of what you have is
a function of the knowledge of what you don't or could have had.
  About the poem itself, I love its simplicity and its brevity. Dickinson
makes her point very quickly and leaves it at that, allowing the reader to
further carry on the train of thought. I also like the way she exaggerates
the ostensible difference between the winner and the loser... the winner is
'the purple host who takes the flag' while the loser is injured, in pain,
dying... partly due to being bested and partly due to the knowledge that
he/she has been bested.

Ashwin.

From: Charles Carneal <ccarneal@>

While the sporting references are apparent, because of its date (1864) this
poem might also relate to the Civil War;  since Roman or perhaps Mayan times
one did not usually lie "defeated, dying" on the field of a sporting event. 

It also seems as though it might refer to one who is on his deathbed
mentally reviewing his life as a failure.  Perhaps it is life itself that is
the victory...

Thanks for the poem!


Charles Carneal
AHM Development, Inc.
8411 Preston Road, Suite 711
Dallas, Texas 75225
(214) 750-1575 office
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