A little bit of truth form emily dickenson

Fame is a fickle food (1659) by Emily Dickenson

Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate
Whose table once a
Guest but not
The second time is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the Farmer's Corn –
Men eat of it and die.

From the web address: http://poets.org/page.php/prmID/86


This poem is well written because it is short and to the point. It takes some thinking but the point is easy to get. In her poem Emily Dickinson tries to warn the reader that fame and fortune will not bring happiness. The poem is timeless in that the lesson within the poem applies to all generations. Fame has always been one of man’s goals. People think that all they have to do is become popular and own fancy things to be truly happy. Here in her poem, Emily says that fame is so worthless that not even the crows will touch it. Instead of chasing someone else’s dreams we should chase our own. It is then that we will be truly happy.
Also the last line in the poem tells of what can happen if a person becomes too concerned with acheiveing fame and fortune. The line in the poem says "Men eat of it and die". I believe this means that when people chase after fame they in a sense lose themselves. They become so engrossed with finding their time in the sun that they neglect the things in life which make a person truly happy. When you think about it this way those people are in a sense dead. After all life is not worth living if you can not enjoy it.