Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 9-12
When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door –
When Butterflies – renounce their "drams" –
I shall but drink the more!
- No catchy songs for those poor bees, it's just a stern-faced landlord of the inn pointing them away from the delicious-looking foxglove flowers and a swift kick in the stinger for those who don't take the hint. (To "turn" something "out of the door" is to kick it out of the place.)
- The butterflies have decided to turn a new page and give up ("renounce") drinking forever (a "dram" is a small cup of whiskey or other liquor), but the speaker of the poem is clearly happy to take up their slack and drink their share, too.
- The stanza as a whole is likely a reference to the passage of time in nature. Autumn comes to shut down the pollen factories of flowers, so the bees go do… whatever it is that bees do when it gets cold. Even during the summer when the sun goes down, the butterflies have to give up flitting from flower to flower and find a more sensible place to rest for the night.
- Wait a second—is our speaker actually telling nature that she can drink it under the table? She sure is—at least when it comes to the completely non-alcoholic drinking game of pure awe and appreciation.
- What Dickinson seems to be suggesting here is that the speaker's admiration of nature is even more pure than that of the industrious insect. Bees and butterflies have a job to do, and though they do often get drunk on the job (and do a lot of other weird and gross stuff), they're still doing it out of necessity. The speaker, on the other hand, gets drunk off nature for the sheer pleasure of it, and after the bees and butterflies go do whatever it is they do after work, she will still be there drinking in all the glory of nature.
- The ABCB rhyme scheme makes its appearance again here in this stanza with "door" in line 10 rhyming with "more" in line 12. Check out "Form and Meter" for more on that.