“I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed” by Emily Dickinson (1851)

The poem reveals how Dickinson playfully used the metaphor of intoxication to suggest joy, in this case the poet being blown away by the delights of a spring morning. The “inebriate of Dew,” the poet happily describes herself as the “little Tippler / Leaning against the--Sun.”

“Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1838)

With all the ponderous seriousness typical of the Fireside Poets whom Dickinson both admired and disdained, Longfellow offers his inspirational message about the joy and rewards of life despite the difficulties. “Be a hero in the strife,” he advises. Strife cannot last. This contrasts with Dickinson’s far more muted argument that strife is not something you should expect to overcome. Strife is the very element of character.

“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” by Walt Whitman (1865)

Written on the occasion of the national trauma over Lincoln’s assassination, the poem weighs down within the heavy gravity of loss and anger and bitterness. The poem uses the assassination to despair over the world that Dickinson counsels is the world we all must live in; a world of unexpected loss and grief.