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Poems

J214

I 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 - 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 -

c. 1860                    1891

 

This poem develops the same theme, although much more effectively, as Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Bacchus": the inebriation (i.e., inspiration) of the poet through her immediate experience of nature.