I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed
I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed - meaning Summary
Exultant Intoxication of Nature
The speaker describes an ecstatic, almost religious intoxication drawn from the natural world rather than any drink. Using the persona of a convivial tippler, she celebrates sensation and freedom—air, dew, summer light—as intoxicants that surpass wine. The poem turns mundane imagery of inns, landlords, and bees into a joyful claim on nature’s riches, while anticipating bemused celestial onlookers. Rather than addiction or despair, the tone is exultant and playful: the speaker vows to drink more from the world even when other creatures abstain, imaginatively leaning against the sun.
Read Complete AnalysesI 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 the landlord 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!
Feel free to be first to leave comment.