What did the poet say?
Success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed,
Yet such a sentiment is wrong, deeply and distressingly so,
For the nectar of success proves most enticing
To those whom Dame Fortune
Has coquettishly extended her index finger
And, twirling it ever so slightly in the air,
Has let him taste (for the briefest of moments, mind you) the tip,
A momentary sensation in the merest fragment of time,
But the sweetness, the utterly transcendent joy
Contained in that single frame in the long movie of one’s life,
Becomes not a cherished memory
But an unfathomable grail which engulfs all other desire,
Supplanting any semblance of prudence or reason
Until its recipient is no more than a small boy
Who, forsaking all other toys, hurdles bicycles and baseball bats
In the absurd pursuit of a runaway kite
Which has wholly bewitched him
By the alluring pull of the string,
The mad and joyous dance against an endless field of blue.