what are some of Dickinson images? How do they work as metaphors?

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.

This poem presents the image of liquor as a metaphor for nature. The speaker becomes drunk from the air on endless summer days she obtains from inns of the sky.

FAITH is a fine invention

For gentlemen who see;

But microscopes are prudent

In an emergency!

In this poem faith is compared to an invention, but when faith waivers, perhaps a microscope is necessary.

A great place to start in answering this question is Emily Dickinson's poem "A Book." She employs the image of a "frigate... to take us lands away," implying that a book displaces the mundane nature of everyday reality and substitutes it with a grand adventure.