I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed

"I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed" is a poem written by American writer Emily Dickinson. Dickinson never titled the poem (known as #214) and it is commonly referred to by its first line.

The poem was first published in 1955 in "The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson". The poem demonstrates Dickinson’s involvement in the transcendentalist movement, metaphorically tying the effects of alcohol with life. Dickinson uses lines such as “Inebriate of Air – am I,” the perfection description for one who reaches her state of drunkenness of air alone. Dickinson does an excellent job comparing alcohol and life, pointing out the similarities of the two. The poem itself is most likely sarcastic toward the temperance movement in the 1920's. Aside from the sarcasm, Dickinson makes fine note of how a person can reach a great state in their life simply off of nature alone, something we tend to ignore in society. The analogy made in the third paragraph to when a bee finds its honey illustrates how people can find good in things that are natural. Current trends in American society and even the society of the 1920’s was one which is outlined by capitalism. Dickinson points out that in our lives, we continue to move forward always searching for some greater state but we can simply turn inward and use the natural resources provided to us in life to find the simplest form of stress-free happiness. The theme Dickinson expresses is the world is ever-evolving, but we find eternal beauty that evolves with it, not through material value but through the simplicity of nature.

References

Poem:
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 the landlord 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!
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External links

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* [http://www.emilydickinson.org/ Dickinson Electronic Archives]