Whimsical Intoxication

I'm beginning to actually enjoy Emily Dickinson's writing style and poems. The last poem we read in class was dark, but the imagery and meaning were intense. When I went on a college visit to Vanderbilt, one of the buildings had a line from another one of her poems written above the door, and the entire poem carved into the wall right inside the foyer. I thought it was really cool of a college to do something like that to remind its students that "The Brain- is wider than the Sky-" (that's the line, which is also the poem's title, inscribed into the building). Honestly, at first, I thought Dickinson was just a sad, dark, gloomy woman who lived alone. Now, I'm beginning to realize that she was lighthearted too, as "I taste a liquor never brewed" exemplifies. I believe that this poem is about nature and its liveliness. She uses the liquor/drinking metaphor to give the idea of intoxication; the rest of the poem is about nature intoxicating her. Her joyful phrases such as "endless summer days," "butterflies renounce their dreams," and "leaning against the sun" all are references to different parts of nature. Lines such as these made me smile as I read the poem and considerably less stressed about life. I hope that if we read more of Dickinson's poems, they will continue to be powerful poems.