The Full Text of “Success is counted sweetest”
1Success is counted sweetest
2By those who ne'er succeed.
3To comprehend a nectar
4Requires sorest need.
5Not one of all the purple Host
6Who took the Flag today
7Can tell the definition
8So clear of victory
9As he defeated – dying –
10On whose forbidden ear
11The distant strains of triumph
12Burst agonized and clear!
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“Success is counted sweetest” Introduction
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"Success is Counted Sweetest" is an early poem written by the American poet Emily Dickinson in 1859. It makes the bold claim that success is best understood by those who fail, and illustrates this claim by contrasting a victorious army with a fallen soldier from the other side. The poem has the rare honor of publication during Dickinson's lifetime (in 1864), though it was published anonymously; of her approximately 1,800 poems, only a few were published during her life.
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“Success is counted sweetest” Summary
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People who always fail are the ones who appreciate success the most. To truly value something sweet like success, you have to really, really need it.
Not a single soldier in the army that won the battle today has as clear an understanding of the meaning of victory as does a dying soldier from the opposing army.
To this dying soldier's ears, the distant sounds of celebration ring out painfully clear.
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“Success is counted sweetest” Themes
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Success, Lack, and Desire
Emily Dickinson’s “Success is counted sweetest” argues that “success” is valued most by those who have it least. In this sense, success is a kind of a paradox: the more successful you are, the less you appreciate that success, and vice versa. The desire for success is thus strongest in those who need it most—like the dying soldier who can hear the celebrations of his enemies. Desire, then, is defined by a sense of lack—of not having something.
It follows that the less likely success is to come to someone, the more intensely they will desire it. The use of “sweetest” and "nectar" in the first stanza further draw a link between success and desire, as though “success” is something deliciously luxurious to those who don't have it. Indeed, the metaphor in the second half of the first stanza suggests that this paradoxical relationship between success and valuing success is engrained in nature itself. A honey bee, for example, desires “nectar” more and more the hungrier it gets. Likewise, those whose longing for success is met only with failure feel increasingly hungry for success (according to this poem anyway).
The poem develops this idea further with a metaphor about military conflict. In this scenario, a soldier lies “dying” on the ground, hearing the “distant” sounds of “triumph” made by the victorious army (the “purple Host”). It is this dying soldier, not the victors themselves, who best understands what success actually means. He senses the vast distance between his “failure”—the fact that his side has lost the battle and he is now dying—and the goal of the battle in the first place: victory. In other words, the position he finds himself in is as far away as it possibly could be from the position he desired to be in.
The poem's central idea doesn’t seem limited to the specific examples given. Its message could equally apply to the “agony” of unrequited love or a sportsperson failing to win the tournament they’ve always dreamed of winning. People who don't have something want it all the more strongly. Yet the more that thing becomes a part of daily reality—be it success in terms of battle, love, career, or anything else—the less it actually means.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Success is counted sweetest”
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Lines 1-2
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.Dickinson often wrote poems with succinct moral messages, and this poem immediately states its message in clear terms:
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.In other words, success is most valued and best appreciated by those who "ne'er" (never) have it. This is a paradox typical of Dickinson's poetry, with "success" meaning more the less that people enjoy it—and implying that having success makes it seem less significant.
The poem is deliberately general both here and throughout, allowing for the power of its main idea to feel like it can apply to almost any situation that involves success (and by extension the desire for success). For example, the opening two lines would seem apt if applied to situations as different as unrequited love or a soccer player's failure to win a long hoped-for trophy.
The first two lines are packed with sibilance:
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.On the one hand, this dense use of sound makes the opening lines, an example of an aphorism, all the more memorable—they feel quippy and witty in their delivery of this moral message. On a subtler level, the /s/ sounds are an important part of the poem's opening metaphor, of success as a kind of "sweet taste" most desired by those who never have it. The /s/ sounds create a kind of salivation in the mouth of the reader, suggestive of both the enjoyment of food (success) and the way in which the body creates saliva in anticipation of food (desire).
The enjambment between the two lines creates a sense of anticipation as the reader waits for the answer to the implicit question posed by the first line: who counts success sweetest? The next line delivers this answer, and then concludes with a strong end-stop—the clear pause suggesting the speaker's assuredness in the truth of this aphorism.
These lines also establish the poem's meter, which is iambic trimeter:
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.The first line has an extra unstressed syllable, creating a feminine ending; this may seem like a hiccup, but the speaker will actually repeat this same pattern almost exactly in every other line throughout the poem.
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Lines 3-4
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
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Lines 5-8
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory -
Lines 9-10
As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear -
Lines 11-12
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
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“Success is counted sweetest” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Alliteration
The first stanza of “Success is Counted Sweetest” makes frequent use of alliteration, which, combined with sibilance and consonance, makes its moral message all the more memorable. This stanza is filled with repeated /s/ and /n/ sounds at the start of words.
The poem here is building a metaphor, mapping the idea of “success” onto taste (specifically, onto sweetness). The “sweet” taste of success is one best enjoyed—or one that would be best enjoyed—by those for whom it is most unattainable.
The next instance of alliteration is between “ne’er” and “nectar” (lines 2 and 3). These words look and sound very similar, with just the /ct/ added or taken away to make them sound the same. This places the two concepts close together: “ne’er,” which represents denial and failure, with “nectar,” which stands in for the sweet taste of success. This creates a “so-near-yet-so-far” effect, with “nectar” placed tantalizingly—but forever—out of reach. This then widens to include the “need” of line 4.
The other example of alliteration in “Success is Counted Sweetest” comes in line 9. Here, the two /d/ sounds of “defeated” and “dying” combine with caesura to create a sense of weariness and small, difficult movement in keeping with the description of a dying soldier. Indeed, the first and last syllables of “defeated” even create the word “dead.”
This alliteration also chimes with the /d/ in “distant,” which has a similar effect to the /n/ alliteration discussed in the paragraph above. The alliteration helps draw a distinction between the “dead” soldier in one place and the victorious “distant” army in another, showing that they are close in the sense that there are fine margins between victory and defeat but also far apart in terms of what it means to succeed or fail.
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Caesura
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Consonance
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Enjambment
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Metonymy
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Metaphor
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Paradox
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Sibilance
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“Success is counted sweetest” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Counted
- Ne'er
- Nectar
- Sorest
- Purple Host
- Strains
- Agonized
Counted-
Here this means "regarded," rather than something to do with numbers.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Success is counted sweetest”
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Form
“Success is Counted Sweetest” is a ballad consisting of three quatrains. This poem is one of a number of “definition poems” by Dickinson, in which she explores the meaning of a word in order to express a complex truth. In this case, the word is “success,” and the poem focuses less on its actual definition than who is best placed to define it. Put simply, it’s those people don’t succeed that best understand the meaning of success.
The opening two lines state this idea plainly, while the rest of the first stanza develops it with a metaphor (that “success” is a kind of “sweet” “nectar” that paradoxically tastes better the less it's tasted).
The second and third stanzas move the poem on to an illustrative example of the poem’s main idea, and this is also a metaphor. Stanza two describes a victorious army, but suggests that they don’t know the meaning of their success as much as the dying soldier—described in stanza 3—who hears their celebrations from afar.
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Meter
“Success is counted Sweetest” is a ballad, meanings its lines alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Were the poem to conform perfectly to this form, lines 1 and 3 in each stanza should have four iambs (da DUM) per line, and lines 2 and 4 should have three iambs per line.
Except, the poem doesn't do this. Instead, lines 1 and 3 in each stanza are missing their final syllables—ending instead on an unstressed note and essentially leaving the reader hanging. Take a look:
Success | is count- | ed sweet- | est
By those | who ne'er | succeed.
To comp- | rehend | a nec- | tar
Requi- | res sor- | est need.For lines 1 and 3 to be proper iambic tetrameter, they'd need another stressed syllable—something like: "Success | is count- | ed sweet- | est dear."
This is technically called catalexis, and it has an interesting effect on the poem’s sound. Whereas steady iambs can often sound assured and measured, the missing syllable at the end these lines creates a sense of falling. It is as though these lines strive to be iambic—but fail. This effect is particularly noticeable in line 9, when the missing syllable combines with the caesura to create an air of defeat and resignation around the word “dying”:
As he | defeat- | ed – dy- | ing –
In fact, the poem’s single other variation supports this idea. Line 5 describes the victory—the “success”—of the dying soldier’s rivals. And accordingly, the line is purely iambic, as though the army’s victory has earned that right:
Not one | of all | the pur- | ple Host
This line is an example of perfect iambic tetrameter, and its regularity recalls the sound of a victory march.
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Rhyme Scheme
“Success is Counted Sweetest” has a regular rhyme scheme with the following pattern:
ABCB
This scheme is known as the ballad stanza, but is also close to the hymn songs of Dickinson's time. As with Dickinson’s other poems, this makes “Success is Counted Sweetest” an easy poem to memorize. In turn, this makes it feel like an aphorism—a succinctly expressed truth or thought about life—that expresses something complicated in simple terms.
The first pair of rhymes helps set up the poem’s relationship between success and the desire for success. "Succeed"/"need" neatly represents the poem’s main idea that understanding the value of success depends, paradoxically, on not having it.
The second pair of rhyme words—"today"/"victory"—is a slant rhyme, another common element of Dickinson’s poetry. But the third pair returns to full rhyme, with "ear" and "clear" chiming together in an appropriately neat and obvious way. Here, the poem describes the dying soldier’s experience of hearing the sounds of the other army’s celebrations—which thereby makes the distinction between success and failure all the more painful and immediate. It makes sense, therefore, that the rhyme here would match this painful clarity.
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“Success is counted sweetest” Speaker
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As with much of Dickinson’s poetry, the speaker in “Success is Counted Sweetest” is non-specific—given no age, gender, occupation, etc. The speaker has a bold statement to make about the nature of success and failure and, having made that statement, goes about proving it. The speaker’s aim is to shake up the concepts of success and failure and in turn to see them anew. The speaker's anonymity helps the poem's argument apply to lots of different circumstances; it's not limited to any single situation.
It’s hard not to see this discussion of the nature of success in the context of Dickinson’s own life, however. A passionate believer in the power of poetry, Dickinson had to reconcile herself to the unfortunate fact that she wouldn’t get the recognition in her life time that her poetry deserved. She was well placed, then, to understand the desire for literary success while also having to adjust to its lack.
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“Success is counted sweetest” Setting
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Dickinson’s poems often have a timeless quality, and they rarely contain geographical specifics. As with her other “definition poems,” “Success is Counted Sweetest” takes place in a kind of forum in which the speaker examines a concept and tries to cast it in fresh light.
Accordingly, it’s fair to say that this poem takes place in a world of argument and metaphor. That said, the mention of “nectar” in line 3 briefly evokes a natural setting, and the second and third stanzas take place on a battlefield of some sort. But the poem is trying to convey truths about the world that are universal, and so this battle is described in very general terms. The lack of a really specific setting helps the poem's message apply to all sorts of different situations.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Success is counted sweetest”
Literary Context
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), one of the world's most influential and beloved poets, might never have been known at all. During her lifetime, she published only a handful of the nearly 1,800 poems she composed, preferring to keep much of her writing private. If Dickinson's sister Lavinia hadn't discovered a trunkful of poetry hidden in Dickinson's bedroom after her death, that poetry could have been lost.
Perhaps it's partly because of her separation from the literary mainstream that Dickinson's poetry is so idiosyncratic and distinctive. While her interest in the power of nature and the workings of the soul mark her as a voice of the American Romantic movement, her work didn't sound like anyone else's. Combining the common meter rhythms of hymns with strange, spiky, dash-riddled diction, Dickinson's poems often plumbed eerie psychological depths over the course of only a few lines.
Dickinson was inspired both by contemporary American Transcendentalists—like Emerson, whose essays on self-reliance she deeply admired—and by the work of earlier English writers like Charlotte Brontë and William Wordsworth. All these writers shared an interest in the lives of ordinary people and struggled for inner freedom in a 19th-century world that often demanded conformity.
"Success is Counted Sweetest" belongs to the category of Dickinson's work that might be called "definition poems." In these, the speaker sets out an abstract noun which is then discussed in concrete terms and images; this refreshes the abstract concept and casts it in a new light. Other famous poems that follow a similar setup are "Grief is a Mouse," "Fame is a Bee," and "Hope is the Thing with Feathers." This poem differs slightly in that the "is" is not immediately followed by a concrete noun (instead, it is followed by the phrase "counted sweetest").
Historical Context
Emily Dickinson lived in small-town Amherst, Massachusetts all her life. She grew up in a strict Protestant environment that placed great emphasis on religious rules and social codes; in fact, her family line can be traced back to the 16th-century Puritan settler John Winthrop. Though she ultimately rejected organized religion, her poems remain preoccupied with theological concerns (including the existence of an afterlife and competing ideas about the ways in which people ought to serve God). Dickinson's religious upbringing also shows itself in the hymn-like tones and rhythms of her poetry.
Dickinson wrote most of her poetry during the American Civil war, which ran from 1861 to 1865. She was firmly on the Union side of that bloody conflict; in one of her letters, she writes with delight about the ignominious defeat of Confederate president Jefferson Davis, who was reportedly trying to make his escape disguised in a woman's skirt when he was finally captured. She even contributed three anonymous poems—some of only a handful she published during her lifetime—to a fundraising magazine in support of the Union army.
However, Dickinson rarely addressed the political world around her directly in her poetry, preferring either to write about her immediate surroundings or to take a much wider philosophical perspective. And by all accounts, Dickinson's life was extremely unusual for the time. Most women were expected to marry and have children, but she never did; in fact, towards the end of her life, she barely spoke to anyone but a small circle of close friends and family. She spent most of her time shut up in her room, relatively immune to what was taking place outside in the wider world.
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More “Success is counted sweetest” Resources
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External Resources
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On Playing Emily — A clip in which actor Cynthia Nixon discusses playing Emily Dickinson in the film A Quiet Passion.
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Student Resources — Resources for students about Dickinson provided by the Emily Dickinson museum (which is situated in her old house).
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Understanding Dickinson's Use of Meter — A valuable discussion of Dickinson's use of meter in her poetry.
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Dickinson: the Podcast — Experts talk about Emily Dickinson's life and work on the BBC's In Our Time podcast/radio show.
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The Original Poem — Take a look at the poem in Dickinson's handwriting.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson
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