I Taste A liquor never brewed
Friday, 26. May 2006, 18:13:49
I Taste A liquor never brewed
---by Emily Dickinson
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, through 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!
At the first glance of this abstruse poem of Emily Dickinson’s, just as captain said in his comments, I had thought it is a poem concerned with liquor and all of the bad things that go along with it. But not until I finish appreciating that stunning comments of captain’s, do I really perceive it is a sheer lighthearted, happy, playful, charming, and amusing poem. I also have learnt If I attempt to compose a poem of naive delight, I might as well employ the children's rhyme style ( Arranged in four line stanzas in common verse, alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter, and there are rhymes of various styles between the second and fourth line of each stanza)
As for "tetrameter" and "trimeter", virtually I have a vague concept. Yet fortunately I have got some valuable concrete reference: In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line - example:
When here the spring we see,
Fresh green upon the tree.
"Tetrameter" means "four measures." Verse written in tetrameter has four measures, which are also called feet. In English, the most common foot or measure is the iamb, which is a pair of syllables that follow this pattern: ta TUM. Iambic tetrameter has four such feet, for a total of eight syllables. A line of poetry is in iambic tetrameter if it follows this pattern: ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM. An example of four lines of tetrameter is the first stanza of the introduction to Milton,by William Blake:
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
As a matter of fact,after reading this fabulous comments of captain’s, , what fills me with deep feeling is the poet ---Emily Dickinson’s attitude towards life.---“She didn't need all of those worldly things to be happy. It was the little things that gave her joy and pleasure. Just being surrounded by nature and other creatures gave her the happiness that others need marriage and money to find.” So in our life, we should be good at finding the simple pleasures of life and then experience this sense of joy and tranquility, exciting and exhilarating us to make us achieve the “drunken state”, and sense how wonderful life is~!
---by Emily Dickinson
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, through 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!
At the first glance of this abstruse poem of Emily Dickinson’s, just as captain said in his comments, I had thought it is a poem concerned with liquor and all of the bad things that go along with it. But not until I finish appreciating that stunning comments of captain’s, do I really perceive it is a sheer lighthearted, happy, playful, charming, and amusing poem. I also have learnt If I attempt to compose a poem of naive delight, I might as well employ the children's rhyme style ( Arranged in four line stanzas in common verse, alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter, and there are rhymes of various styles between the second and fourth line of each stanza)
As for "tetrameter" and "trimeter", virtually I have a vague concept. Yet fortunately I have got some valuable concrete reference: In poetry, a trimeter is a metre of three metrical feet per line - example:
When here the spring we see,
Fresh green upon the tree.
"Tetrameter" means "four measures." Verse written in tetrameter has four measures, which are also called feet. In English, the most common foot or measure is the iamb, which is a pair of syllables that follow this pattern: ta TUM. Iambic tetrameter has four such feet, for a total of eight syllables. A line of poetry is in iambic tetrameter if it follows this pattern: ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM ta TUM. An example of four lines of tetrameter is the first stanza of the introduction to Milton,by William Blake:
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
As a matter of fact,after reading this fabulous comments of captain’s, , what fills me with deep feeling is the poet ---Emily Dickinson’s attitude towards life.---“She didn't need all of those worldly things to be happy. It was the little things that gave her joy and pleasure. Just being surrounded by nature and other creatures gave her the happiness that others need marriage and money to find.” So in our life, we should be good at finding the simple pleasures of life and then experience this sense of joy and tranquility, exciting and exhilarating us to make us achieve the “drunken state”, and sense how wonderful life is~!
WIDGETIZE