"I tast a liquor never brewed" by Emily Dickinson

# 12

Ohh Emily....

Dickinson writes this poem as an allegory, where each element seems to stand for something bigger than the meaning of the poem. Dickinson's poems are often times difficult to grasp, but it is evident that nature is the main focus of the poem. Nature is the "liquor" by which drunkenness comes. This becomes clear as all the terminology refers to drinking: "tankards," "drams," debauchee." However, the nature aspect is revealed through phrases like "out of Foxglove's door," "butterflies," "inns of Molten Blue," and "leaning against the sun." The Molten Blue seems to be the sky, sheltering nature like an inn shelters drunks. When the speaker says "leaning against the sun," the symbolic imagery is suppose to be a drunkard leaning against a light post in the street (sun and light post both give off light!). The seraphs and the saints represent godly beings watching people finding excess joy in the beauty of nature; they go to every "window" to watch (line 14)!