This Success Is Counted Sweetest summary begins with a paradox. Emily Dickinson argues that the people who value success most are those who never achieve it. Just as only someone desperately thirsty truly understands a sweet drink, only a defeated soldier, dying on the battlefield as he hears the winners celebrate, truly understands what victory means. Read the full text of Success Is Counted Sweetest on Poetry Catalog, where it appears under the early printed title Success.
Success Is Counted Sweetest Summary
Stanza 1. “Success is counted sweetest / By those who ne’er succeed.” Those who never succeed value success the most. In the same way, “To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need”: you only understand how precious a sweet drink is when you are in great need of it.
Stanza 2. None of “the purple host,” the victorious army, who “took the flag to-day” can define victory as clearly as one other person.
Stanza 3. That person is the defeated soldier, “dying,” who hears “The distant strains of triumph” from the winning side. The sounds of victory reach his “forbidden ear,” and they “Break, agonized and clear!”
Key Facts
- Poet: Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
- First printed: 1878, anonymously, in the anthology A Masque of Poets
- Collected: in Poems (1890), under the title Success
- Form: three quatrains in hymn-like meter
- Speaker: a general, reflective voice
- Tone: thoughtful, then intensely painful
Themes
Desire and lack. The poem’s central claim is that we understand things most fully when we lack them. Need sharpens perception.
Victory and defeat. The winners, busy celebrating, cannot grasp the meaning of what they have won. The loser, who has lost everything, understands it completely.
Suffering and knowledge. The dying soldier’s understanding comes through agony. The poem suggests that pain can bring a clarity that comfort never does.
Exclusion. The soldier’s ear is “forbidden”: he is shut out from the triumph. Dickinson often wrote about being on the outside, looking in.
Key Lines Explained
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne’er succeed.
The opening states the paradox in plain words. “Counted” means judged or valued. “Ne’er” is a shortened form of never.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Nectar was the drink of the gods in Greek myth, and the word suggests the sweetest possible drink. “Sorest need” means the most painful thirst or want.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
“Host” is an old word for an army. Purple was a color of royalty and may suggest the victors’ rich uniforms. To take the flag is to capture the enemy’s colors, a sign of victory.
As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The commas slow the line down, making each word heavy. His ear is “forbidden” because the triumph is not his to share.
The distant strains of triumph
Break, agonized and clear!
“Strains” are pieces of music. The sounds of celebration “Break” on his ear like waves, and they are both “agonized” and “clear”: painful to hear, yet perfectly understood.
Form, Meter and Rhyme
The poem has three quatrains, mostly in common meter (lines of three and four beats), the meter of many church hymns. The second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme. Stanzas 1 and 3 use full rhymes, “succeed” and “need,” “ear” and “clear.” Stanza 2 uses a slant rhyme, “to-day” and “victory,” a slightly off sound that fits the victors’ failure to grasp what victory means.
The argument moves from a general rule (stanza 1) to a vivid example (stanzas 2–3). The poem’s single long sentence in the last two stanzas builds to the exclamation mark, putting all the weight on the soldier’s final moment.
FAQ
What is the main message of Success Is Counted Sweetest?
That people understand and value success most deeply when they have been denied it, while those who achieve it often take it for granted.
What does “the purple host” mean?
The victorious army. “Host” means army, and purple suggests royalty or rich uniforms.
Why is the dying soldier able to define victory?
Because he has just lost. His defeat, and the sound of the winners’ celebration, make him understand victory with painful clarity.
Was Success Is Counted Sweetest published in Dickinson’s lifetime?
Yes. It appeared anonymously in A Masque of Poets in 1878, one of the very few of her poems printed while she lived. Some readers at the time guessed it was by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
What is the tone of the poem?
It begins calmly, like a proverb, then grows more intense. By the final stanza the tone is anguished, focused on a dying man hearing the celebration of the army that defeated him. The exclamation mark at the end makes the pain feel immediate.