Dickinson, ‘Liquor Never Brewed’

By Scott Horton

Claude Monet, Sunshine and Snow at Lavacourt (1879)

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 more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –

And Saints — to windows run –

To see the little Tippler

Leaning against the — Sun –

–Emily Dickinson, I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed (1860) in Poems by Emily Dickinson, First Series, no. xx (1890).