Drunk on the Earth

Once again, Dickinson's poem is my favorite. I find Dickinson's volte-face from "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" to "I taste a liquor never brewed" particularly interesting. The emotional tones of the two poems are startlingly different. Whereas "Funeral" is gravely serious and rather morbid, "Liquor" is nearly the exact opposite, stating her joy and euphoric reaction to the beauty of nature. I think the aspect of Dickinson's writing which I enjoy the most is its uniqueness. In "Funeral," the unique aspects were the use of solely auditory imagery and the unique perspective of the speaker. In "Liquor," Dickinson creates a rather unique analogy between the effects of the beauty of nature and of alcohol. The speaker describes herself as "Inebriate of Air" (5) and "Debauchee of Dew" (6). Bees are drunken, and Butterflies give up the alcohol of nature, while the speaker says the she "shall but drink the more" (12). This unique description of the speaker's love of nature is a rather fresh change from the gentle imagery of other nature poems. The speaker does not simply appreciate nature; she wants to lose herself within its beauty.