I taste a liquor never brewed
Emily Dickinson, 1861
Emily Dickinson's poem of a speaker drunk on air and summer, out-drinking the bees and butterflies.
I taste a liquor never brewed,From tankards scooped in pearl;Not all the vats upon the RhineYield 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 beeOut 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 tipplerLeaning against the sun!