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Getting Drunk on Nature
I taste a liquor never brewed (1861)
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro’ 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!
E
mily wrote a letter to her brother in 1852 attempting to describe how a beautiful day affected her. “It’s a glorious afternoon
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– ,” she wrote, “the sky is blue and warm – the wind blows just
enough to keep the clouds sailing, and the sunshine, Oh such
sunshine, it is’nt like gold, for gold is dim beside it; it is’nt like
anything which you and I have seen!” Emily’s exuberance clearly
overwhelmed her, but not until 1861, almost a decade later, did
it find full expression in this poem.
A Shocking Metaphor
To capture the exhilaration she feels, Dickinson uses the
metaphor of a drunken woman out of control – an image that
would have been considered scandalous in her day. She must
have been aware of the prevailing attitude toward drunkenness
in Amherst. When she was nineteen years old, the so-called “rum
resorts” in Amherst were closed after the town voted in favor of
prohibition. President Hitchcock of Amherst College declared,
“better that the college should go down, than that young men
should come here to be ruined by drinking places.” In writing her
over-the-top fable about intoxication, she was defying the conventions of her time and place.
Emily’s rapturous response to nature parallels the exhilarating effect the dreaded “rum” was reported to have on the college boys of Amherst. The “little Tippler” in the poem is addicted
to the air and dew of summer days rather than to liquor, but she
is just as inebriated as any alcoholic. The parallel between nature’s creatures and humans is enhanced by applying to the natural world the unlikely image of “Landlords” turning away their
intoxicated customers from their “inns” – but to no avail because,
like “the drunken bee” and the “butterflies,” she will “drink the
more!” The final image finds her “Leaning against the – Sun” to
keep her balance, as any drunk might lean against a lamppost.
However, her source of light – the sun – is more powerful and
grandiose than any lamppost, in keeping with the jubilant tone
of the poem.
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Similar, but Different
The most traditionally acknowledged source of this poem
is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “Bacchus.” Emily had received
Emerson’s Poems as a gift from her friend Benjamin Newton in
1849, and she continued to acquire and read Emerson’s books
all through her life. Many scholars cite Emerson as a major influence on her poetry. Certainly Emerson’s essay “The Poet”
could have served as the model for the speaker in “I taste a liquor
never brewed.” In that essay, Emerson counsels the poet that
“His cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should
suffice for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water.”
Getting inspired and tipsy on sunlight and air is a lot like what
Dickinson’s persona is doing, but her version of being drunk on
nature is distinctly her own. Where Emerson’s transcendentalism
sees nature as a means of merging with the Oversoul (his word
for God), Dickinson’s merger with nature does not lead to a
union with God but to the glorification of the beauty of this
world. In Emily’s poem, the “Seraphs” and “Saints” in the heavens above look down eagerly and indulgently on her delirious
state of happiness below.
Another difference between Emerson’s advice and Dickinson’s poem is that instead of the customary association of
revelry with Bacchus and wine, Dickinson’s words – “brewed,”
“Tankards,” “drams” – suggest beer, a more down-to-earth libation. Germany, famous for its beer, is evoked in “the Frankfort Berries” of the first verse, probably a reference to hops
from the German city of Frankfurt. (“Frankfort” is an example
of Dickinson’s occasionally erratic spelling.)
Breaking the Rules
This poem was first published in the Springfield Republican without Emily’s permission in 1861, the same year she
wrote it. The newspaper altered three of its lines to bring it into
conformity with what was then considered acceptable literary
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usage. In 1890, when the poem was included in the first published collection of Dickinson’s poetry, one reviewer complained
that her verse was as out of control as the speaker in the poem.
It was dismissed as “nonsensical” because of its “faulty rhyme
and grammar.” Today the early objections have vanished. The
lack of control over the rules of poetics are now viewed as enhancing the tenor of the poem, reflecting the fervor of the
speaker’s response to nature, and retaining the ecstasy that accompanied the poem’s creation.
Thomas Johnson, whose groundbreaking textual editing
first restored Dickinson’s poems to their original form, called this
poem an excellent example of both her concern with, and her
indifference to, rhyme and metrical exactness. The poem uses
the “common meter” of the hymns she heard in church during
her childhood, but the regularity is broken. On the only surviving
manuscript of the poem, Johnson found alternative readings for
two lines that would have corrected the irregularities. He concluded that it wasn’t that she didn’t know how to use meter and
rhyme properly, but that she had other priorities. For example,
she conveys the swaying, carefree feel of the country dance, the
reel, by combining the a/b/c/b rhyme pattern of hymns with the
rhythm and the words that fit her imagery.
The editors’ changes in the various so-called “improved”
versions only point out, in the words of one admirer, the “effervescent magic of Emily’s uncommon, uncanny language.” Another calls “I taste a liquor never brewed” one of Dickinson’s
most “dazzling” poems.
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