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 Burst agonized and clear!
A common idea in Dickinson's poems is that not having increases our appreciation or enjoyment of what we lack; the person who lacks (or does not have) understands whatever is lacking better than the person who possesses it. In this poem, the loser knows the meaning '"definition" of victory better than the winners. The implication is that he has "won" this knowledge by paying so high a price, with the anguish of defeat and with his death. In stanza one, she repeats the s sound and, to a lesser degree, n. Why does she use this alliteration? i.e., are the words significant? "Sorest" is used with the older meaning of greatest, but can it also have the more common meaning? What are the associations of "nectar"--good, bad, indifferent? Does "nectar" pick up any word in the first line? In stanza two, "purple" connotes royalty; the robes of kings and emperors were dyed purple. It is also the color of blood. Are these connotations appropriate to the poem? In a battle, what does a flag represent? Why is victory described in terms of taking the losing side's flag? In stanza three, what words are connected by d sounds and by s sounds? Is there any reason for connecting or emphasizing these words? Dickinson is compressing language and omitting connections in the last three lines. The dying man's ears are not forbidden; rather, the sounds of triumph are forbidden to him because his side lost the battle. The triumphant sounds that he hears are not agonized, though they are clear to him; rather, he is agonized at hearing the clear sounds of triumph of the other side. They are "distant" literally in being far off and metaphorically in not being part of his experience; defeat is the opposite of or "distant" from victory.