In this poem, Dickinson incorporates one long extended metaphor to compare summer and everything related to it to alcohol. The speaker in the poem adores summer. For him, summertime is a "liquor never brewed", better than all the alcohol made in the "Vats upon the Rhine," (Dickinson 797). In order to clarify that the speaker is in fact comparing summer to the alcohol, Dickinson employs several clever titles. He writes and the speaker states that he is an "Inebriate of Air", a "Debauchee of Dew" (Dickinson 797). These titles show the speaker deriving his intoxication from aspects of summer and warm weather. Furthermore, the speaker reinforces his ecstasy over the season by expressing how even after bees and butterflies have stopped drinking in the weather, he'll continue to imbibe the essence of summer. The entire extended metaphor works perfectly except for the problem of the negative connotation associated with drunkenness and alcohol. Luckily, Dickinson rectifies this dilemma in the last stanza. By describing "Seraphs" and "Saints" enjoying and approving of a "Tippler's" intoxication with summer, Dickinson transforms inebriation's negativity into something positive (Dickinson 797). If angels and saints approve, being drunk on summer must be acceptable.
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