The Poems of Emily Dickinson

A friend of Emily Dickinson's had been pestering her for years to contribute a poem to a collection. All the poems contributed are going to be anonymous. The publisher told Helen Hunt Jackson that most people who guessed her poem was written by Ralph Waldo Emerson, isn't that a compliment? But he had not submitted a poem at all. It is about trying for something and almost getting it. Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed. To comprehend an actor requires the sorest need. As he defeated, dying on whose forbidden ear the distant strains of triumph break agonizing clear.