I taste a liquor never brewed

Another nice and straightforward Dickinson poem, "I taste a liquor never brewed" expresses a sentiment that today we might phrase as "being high on life". Read it:

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!

Very Briefly

Dickinson writes that she is intoxicated by nature, and that it is the best of all liquors.

More Detail

This one's metaphor is simple: drunkenness stands in for exhilaration and joy at nature's beauty. Not an uncommon metaphor, either; how often is it said that beauty is intoxicating?

From the first line we know that Dickinson is speaking of no actual liquor. She says that her liquor was "never brewed", and goes on to imply it is superior to all others: "Not all the vats upon the Rhine / Yield such an alcohol!"

From the second stanza, we learn what her liquor is--air and dew, and, by extension, all of nature. Dickinson indicates that she is eternally enchanted by nature, "Reeling, through endless summer days, / From inns of molten blue."

The idea that her intoxication with nature is limitless is further reinforced in the third stanza. When bees leave behind foxgloves' blossoms and butterflies cease to drink nectar, Dickinson "shall but drink the more". For this, I support two interpretations. One, that Dickinson shall never cease in her fascination with nature, because of course, bees and butterflies will always seek out nectar. This fits well with the "endless summer days" from the previous stanza. The other, that when the bees and butterflies stop drinking nectar, which is to say, autumn or winter, Dickinson will still appreciate nature. This interpretation would have the third stanza serve as an acknowledgement of the other parts of the year besides summer.

However you read the third stanza, though, it implies that Dickinson enjoys all of nature, and intends to do so indefinitely. The final stanza leaves us with a lovely image: Dickinson, drunk on the beauty of nature, propping herself up against the sun. How striking!