Fame Is a Fickle Food by Emily Dickinson

Whose crumbs the crows inspect And with ironic caw

Fame Is a Fickle Food

by Emily Dickinson¹

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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

1. Source: Poetry Foundation, from The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)

Copyright Credit: Emily Dickinson, "Fame is fickle food" from (02138: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)