"A Poison Tree," as you've probably figured out by now, appears in Songs of Experience.

It's a
poem about anger, revenge, and death (some of Blake's favorite themes), which contrast
markedly with many of the poems in the Songs of Innocence that feature, well, happier trees
and more benign themes. In this poem, Blake is really indulging and exploring his darker side,
and the darker side of the human condition by extension.

WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Do you know anyone who really, really annoys you? Somebody who, no matter what
they do, always manages to get under your skin? Maybe it's a roommate who refuses to
take out the trash or do the dishes, or perhaps it's a sibling who always listens to their
music too loud when you're trying to study or insists on taking the front seat of the car all
the time.

Have you ever noticed that when you talk to them reasonably about what they're doing
that makes you angry, everything becomes much simpler? If you don't say anything,
though, your anger just festers and grows, and grows, and makes you more miserable
by the minute. There's a good chance that you're familiar with this experience, and it is
this experience that William Blake's poem discusses, though in a more gruesome
fashion.

Now, we admit, sometimes it's easier just to walk away. But sometimes a confrontation
is in order. If we refuse to talk to people about what they're doing that is bugging us,
we're the ones who really suffer; we, essentially, "water" and "sun" (in Blake's terms)
our anger until it blossoms into a poisonous apple. Granted, growing a poison apple
with nothing but hate is a pretty unlikely scenario—well, it's actually impossible—but it's
really an extended metaphor for how destructive anger can be. Sure, it won't turn into
an apple that will kill your enemy, but it can become something equally destructive.

Just think: there have been many troubled people who have "snapped" and gone on to
do something just as destructive (just think of the school shootings alone over the last
twenty years or so). In a sense, Blake's poem urges us (you included!) to talk about our
anger and frustrations—not just with our friends, but with our enemies as well. Perhaps
this can, at the very least, ease our internal trouble and prevent us from harming others

The speaker is presenting two scenarios here. In the first, he (we're assuming it's a he)
is in a tiff with his friend, a spat if you will. But wait! There's no need to fret. He told his
friend about his anger and… guess what? His anger went away. Presto! Ah, the power
of communication.
Scenario #2: We get the same basic set-up here. The speaker's mad again, but this
time he's mad at his enemy. Will he follow the same route? You bet your bippy he won't.
He keeps mum about his anger for his enemy and, well, that anger just grows. The
speaker's anger is only heightened by his fears, and his continued deception about his
true feelings.

Then, in an odd, metaphorical twist, the speaker's anger blossoms into an apple. Yum!
At least the speaker's enemy thinks so. One night, he sneaks into the speaker's garden
(presumably for a delicious apple snack), but it doesn't work out so well for him. The
next morning, the speaker is happy to see that his foe lying dead under the tree that
bore the (apparently poison) apple. Not good.

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-
line.

Lines 1-2
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

 As the poem opens, the speaker describes how he was angry with his friend. Bad times.
 Still, he told his friend he was angry ("I told my wrath"), and presumably why he was
angry, and his anger disappeared. Happy days are here again!
 We notice that these lines are linked with end rhyme and a pretty consistent rhythm. We
wonder if this form will continue. (Spoiler alert: Check out "Form and Meter" for more on
this.)

Lines 3-4
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

 The speaker describes a different scenario, now. He was once angry with his "foe"
(a.k.a. his enemy), but didn't tell him about it.
 Since the speaker did not talk about his anger ("I told it not"), his anger got bigger and
bigger ("my wrath did grow").
 You know how, when you keep something bottled up inside, it tends to make that feeling
more intense and overwhelming? We're guessing that this is what's going on for the
speaker here.
Lines 5-8

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

 The speaker talks more about how his anger grows. Using figurative language, he treats
this anger very much like a plant. A plant needs water and sun in order to grow, and so
apparently does his anger.
 He watered it with his "fears" and his "tears" and made sure it got plenty of sunshine.
 Now, we know that the speaker didn't give his anger-plant real sunshine. Instead, he
gave it "smiles" and "deceitful wiles." These are more like "fake" sunshine.
 They help the plant to grow—like real sunshine would for a real plant..
 A wile is a "crafty, cunning, or deceitful trick." "Deceitful wiles," then, are super-deceitful
tricks (or really, really cunning traps). The speaker suggests that he is a very deceptive
person and that he is planning something very sinister and mischievous. Whatever it is,
though, his anger seems to dig it, since those deceitful schemes are like sunshine to it.
 A growing plant is usually a good, positive thing, a symbol of life. It seems ironic that a
growing plant is being compared to a growing anger. Is anger a good thing in the world
of this poem?

Lines 9-12

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine.
And he knew that it was mine,

 Because of the speaker's efforts, his plant (anger) eventually bears ("bore") fruit: an
"apple bright." Yum!
 Wait, is this apple a good thing?
 The speaker's enemy sure thinks so. The enemy sees the fruit of the speaker's wrath,
and somehow he's able to recognize that it belongs to the speaker. It's not clear how,
though.
 Let's read on to see if that's explained later in the poem…
Lines 13-16
And into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

 Aha! The enemy has seen this anger-apple in the speaker's garden. So, it's safe to say
that's how he knows it is the speaker's.
 That doesn't stop the enemy from trying to steal it, though. After he has seen the apple,
the "foe" sneaks into the speaker's garden at night.
 The word "stole" is a past tense of the verb "steal," which in this context means
something like "sneak in secretly." This word also suggests "steal" (like a thief steals). It
seems that the speaker is blaming his foe, or calling him a thief.
 This happens when it's super-dark out. In the phrase "night had veiled the pole," pole
refers to the top of the earth, as in the "north pole," but it can also mean the pole star,
also known as the North star, also known as Polaris. It's an important star for navigation,
since it's bright and it stays pretty much fixed in the sky. Tonight, though, the night has
"veiled" it, covered it up. This star, used in navigating folks safely through danger, is not
visible. Uh-oh!
 To suggest that the night (an abstract time) could actually cover up the star (like a
person might) is to use personification.
 Apparently, at some point in the super-dark night, the enemy eats the apple, which ends
up killing him or making him fall asleep. It's not clear which, although the speaker is glad
to see him laid out in the garden. We're going to go with death for the enemy here, since
the speaker would likely not be too happy if his enemy both ate his apple and used his
garden like a cheap hotel.
 Still, the word "glad" is a bit ambiguous here (it could have more than one meaning).
"Glad" could refer to the morning, as in "the morning is glad," or it can refer to the
speaker's feelings when he sees his "foe" lying "beneath the tree."
 Either way, it seems like bad times for the enemy, good times for the speaker. Or is it?


 The title of this poem announces its central metaphor. The poem is called "A
Poison Tree," and at the end a "foe" lies "outstretched beneath a tree" (16) after
eating the (possibly poisoned) apple that grows on it. The apple may be
poisonous because it is the child of the speaker's anger—it is sustained and
grown via negative emotions, and it's been growing for quite a while.
  This poem isn't just about a weird, poisonous tree, though. The poison tree can
be seen as a metaphor for what happens when you stay angry for too long a
time. Have you ever stewed about something for an extended period of time?
Sure you have. We all have. Eventually, though, all that negative energy has to
come out, and when it does it's not pretty. Nurturing and feeding anger all the
time will eventually end up poisoning somebody, right?
 To add another layer to the title, consider that William Blake was a deeply
religious man. Much of his poetry should be read with Biblical themes in mind.
The idea of a tree that is poisonous recalls the Tree of Knowledge of Good and
Evil from the book of Genesis (the first book of the Judeo-Christian bible). In
Genesis, God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of this tree, which they end
up doing despite this order. Eating from this tree is the first sin, and as a result,
death, pain—in short everything that sucks—enters the world. Blake's title takes
a certain cue from this story, and the poem is partly about sin and doing things
one shouldn't (like sneaking into a garden to steal an apple or letting one's anger
grow and grow).
 In the end, the title prepares us for the lesson that will be delivered by the poem's
end, and it also identifies the way in which the poem will deliver the lesson. Neat,
huh?

Where It All Goes Down

We get very few details on the setting in this poem. The most identifiable place here is
the speaker's garden, which features that bright, shiny anger-apple that lures the foe in:
Chomp. Ugh. Thump.

Now, what transpires in the speaker's garden is pretty straightforward (the enemy
sneaks in in the dead of night and is found dead there the next morning), but the
circumstances deserve a bit of attention. Our first question, for example, is why is the
speaker's apple—which is the symbolic representation of his unreleased anger—so
attractive to the target of that anger, the enemy? One way to look at it might be that that
speaker's anger produced a similar reaction in the enemy. In that sense, his anger
attracted the enemy's attention, luring him into the garden.

To continue down this line of thought, the enemy taking a bit of the apple would be his
own unhealthy, unresolved anger that's directed right back at the speaker. Just as the
speaker grows the poison apple of anger, then, the angry enemy is likewise poisoned.

Of course, all this takes place in the speaker's garden, and it's his apple that's to blame.
In this way, the setting subtly reminds us that, while the enemy may have been literally
trespassing in the poem, it is the speaker who bears the ultimate responsibility for his
foe's death. For shame, creepy gardener, for shame.