Much madness is divinest sense

Emily Dickinson

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye,
Much sense, the starkest madness,
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevail:
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur, you're straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain.

     This poem definitely makes you think some, starting with the first line.  The first line contains some irony.  She mentions "much madness", which I immediately think of a crazy person or something like that.  Then she goes on to say that it's divinest sense.  That's where the irony comes in.  You typically don't think of crazy or mad people as making much sense.  The first line also contains a lot of alliteration.  (The m's in much madness, the S's at the end of madness, is, divinest, sense.) The second line mentions a discerning eye.  I took discerning as meaning wise.  The rest of the poem I took as saying madness is sanity.  I think madness in this poem is a very ambiguous term, and different meanings of the word can change how the reader perceives the poem.