Dickinson imagines a starving man who gives enormous importance to food simply because it is out of reach. When something is far off and hopeless, he sighs, and that hopelessness makes it seem utterly good. The hunger itself charges the idea of food with a kind of sacred allure. Once he actually eats, the hunger is indeed satisfied, but a quiet truth emerges: the spice, the deliciousness, vanishes the moment the meal is received. What really tasted so rich was not the food but the distance. The speaker’s tone is wry and gently knowing, caught between sympathy for human longing and a cool recognition of how desire tricks us. The mood is bittersweet and contemplative—like a quiet, ironic shrug at the way we idealize what we can’t have, only to find it ordinary once it’s ours.
Undue Significance a starving man attaches — Summary
Undue Significance a starving man attaches To Food -- Far off -- He sighs -- and therefore -- Hopeless -- And therefore -- Good --
Partaken -- it relieves -- indeed -- But proves us That Spices fly In the Receipt -- It was the Distance -- Was Savory --