Success

Success

Original Text
Poems (1890-1896) by Emily Dickinson: A Facsimile Reproduction of the Original Volumes Issued in 1890, 1891, and 1896, with an Introduction by George Monteiro (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles).
2By those who ne'er succeed.
3To comprehend a nectar
4Requires sorest need.
5Not one of all the purple host
6Who took the flag to-day
7Can tell the definition,
8So clear, of victory,
9As he, defeated, dying,
10On whose forbidden ear
11The distant strains of triumph

Notes

1] "Published in `A Masque of Poets' at the request of `H. H.,' the author's fellow-townswoman and friend" (note by Mabel Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson, the editors). Back to Line
12] Break: the extant manuscript version, poem 67, reads "Burst". See The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in two volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981: I, 76; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1878
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 1997.
Rhyme