#11

In "I taste a liquor never brewed," Emily Dickinson uses a metaphor to compare nature to liquor. This poem, to me, made Dickinson sounds sort of "high on life," if you will. In the second stanza, just the air is making her feel drunk. She "taste[s] a liquor never brewed" because what she "taste[s]" isn't actually liquor. She's taking in the beauty of nature, and to her, it's intoxicating just like alcohol would be. She doesn't seem overly drunk, so nature isn't making her senseless. It's giving her an exhilarating sense of peace that she carelessly enjoys. By comparing nature to something with which people in her time period could identify, she ensured that others would understand what she was trying to say about nature and the relaxation that it brings to her.