I taste a liquor never brewed

"I taste a liquor never brewed"
Emily Dickinson
p797

Unlike most of Emily Dickinson's poems, I was actually able to understand the meaning behind this poem. Her unusual punctuation and capitalization was unable to throw me off track! Throughout "I taste a liquor never brewed," the amount of nature imagery was very prevalent, and, with the help of the opening line, it is made clear that the liquor which the speaker is drinking is not a literal liquor. "I taste a liquor never brewed" lets the reader know that the alcohol referenced is not a literal drink because it was never manufactured (Dickinson, 797). The finest alcohols known to man such as the wines produced in the "vats upon the Rhine" could compare to the drink imbibed by the speaker (Dickinson, 797). In the second stanza, the source of intoxication is finally revealed: "air" and "dew," (Dickinson, 797). The speaker is indeed drunk on nature. However, her inebriation is not to be frowned upon. Within the poem, the drunkenness is portrayed as a thing to be celebrated and be embraced. For example, the state of intoxication is only referred to by positive diction, and in the last stanza, even the angels leave Heaven to watch the speaker stumble through her natural setting. They race from the clouds to watch the speaker stumble and lean against the sun, similar to a literally inebriated person leaning against a light post. In all, the poem seems to encourage the reader to imbibe all of the goodness that exists in nature because it provides an indescribable experience and is nothing to be ashamed of.