A Poison Tree

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I watered it in fears,

Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

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.

And into my garden stole,

When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
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.

STANZA 1 SUMMARY

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?

A POISON TREE
 INTRODUCTION

"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.

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.

What is the theme of the poem "The Poison Tree"?

William Blake's allegorical poem, "A Poison Tree," is concerned with the subject of anger. The speaker
of the poem reveals to his friend that he is angry, and the anger dissipates. But when the speaker
hides his anger from his enemy, the anger grows, much like a tree. The fact that the tree is "poison"
tells us that, by ignoring or suppressing anger, we are also poisoned. The apple that appears on the
tree of anger symbolizes that poisonous effect. The final line is ominous; the speaker's delight at the
"foe outstretched beneath the tree" offers a warning about what happens when we suppress our
anger. If we ignore or deny our feelings, we will become wicked, bitter, and even vengeful.

The tone is very matter-of-fact with a hint of satisfaction. The speaker was angry, and he did nothing
about it. The anger poisoned the soil of the tree creating poison fruit. He knew the enemy would be
tempted by the fruit. He was correct, and revenge was successful.

The extended metaphor is comparing anger to a plant (the poison tree of the title). The process of
cultivating one's emotions (as seen in the line " And I watered it in fears") is compared to cultivating a
plant. The emotion is followed through an entire growth cycle, until it blossoms into death. There is a
secondary metaphor implied by the apple; Blake is tied the anger of the poem with the pride of the
biblical story of Adam and Eve. This becomes a kind of original sin.

There are several possible interpretations for those last two lines. One possible option is that the
speaker's wrath killed the other man. To clarify, as the speaker of the poem kept his wrath within him
instead of speaking about it, it grew and grew. It became more and more of a burden, no matter what
he did, whether it be that he "watered it in fears," or "sunned it with smiles." The wrath becomes so
large and noticeable that Blake uses a metaphor of an apple growing from a tree to describe how it
feels to him. Then, at the end, he states that "In the morning glad I see; /My foe outstretched
beneath the tree," which seems to indicate that the foe has partaken of this poisoned apple, and has
died. That is one interpretation. If your wrath and anger for someone is nurtured within you for so
long, it eventually turns to poison, and that poison often does great damage to the person you are
angry with. It's kind-of like bottling up rage and having it explode, with disastrous and regretful
results, instead of just dealing with your anger right away. Blake uses a poisoned apple as a metaphor
for that toxic anger that the reader grew by dwelling on it, and his foe, outstretched on the ground, is
a symbol for the speaker having released his anger finally, and how it completely destroyed the other
person. I doubt Blake is referring to actual murder, but think of the consequences of blowing up at
someone; it ruins friendships, self-esteem, families, marriages, and often has lasting impacts. Blake's
moral is that when we are angry, we should, as he did in line 2, talk about it and get it out there, so
that it can "end" in a better way.

A Poison Tree Summary

First Quatrain

On first contact with "A Poison Tree," a reader may be deceived by the apparent simplicity of the
poem. It seems like one more example of the children's verses and nursery rhymes that had become
popular and were being published in the later part of the eighteenth century. The most famous
collection was the one attributed to "Mother Goose." Such verses were intended to teach children
moral lessons through easy-to-remember rhymes and catchy rhythms.

"I was angry with my friend; / I told my wrath, my wrath did end," Blake begins. The language and
sentiment are simple and hardly need to be explained even to a young child. Someone is speaking of
his direct experience: He was angry at his friend. He told his friend that he was angry, and the result
was that his anger went away. The whole thing is presented in a neat package tied up and resolved by
the rhyme of "friend" and "end." In contrast to this way of handling anger, the speaker says, "I was
angry with my foe: / I told it not, my wrath did grow." Again the verse seems clear and simple, and so,
too, the lesson. When people do not say how they feel, the bad feeling becomes worse. The latter
two lines of the quatrain, furthermore, seem to reinforce the wisdom of the first two: Say what you
feel; do not suppress it, or things will get worse.

The analogy the reader is led to draw between the first set of two lines, or rhyming couplet, and the
second couplet is not exact. The situations are different. In the first couplet, the speaker is angry at
his friend; in the second, at his foe. This difference immediately makes the simple poem less simple.
The lines are not really moralizing about confessing or concealing anger. They are referring to the way
people classify other people as friends and foes and to the different ways people treat friends and
foes. By extension, the poem considers the nature and consequences of anger, exploring how it grows
and what it grows into.

Second Quatrain

The second quatrain, composed of two more rhyming couplets, seems less like a child's verse than the
first quatrain. "And I waterd it in fears," the speaker says, "Night & morning with my tears: / And I
sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles." In these lines, the speaker tells how he has
tended and cultivated his anger, how he has made it grow. He is not suggesting a moral, as he does in
the first quatrain, but he is examining a process. He is revealing the pleasure he takes in his own
slyness. He also begins to speak using metaphor. Metaphor allows one thing to suggest or stand for
something else. The "it" of the first line of the second quatrain refers to the speaker's wrath, but he
speaks of his wrath not as if it were an emotion, which it is, but as if it were a small plant. He "waterd"
his anger with his tears, and, using another metaphor, he "sunned it with smiles / And with soft
deceitful wiles."

Wiles are sly tricks, strategies intended to deceive someone into trusting. The speaker is laying a trap
for his foe, tempting him to desire something that seems alluring but is harmful. As he pretends to be
friendly to his foe, the very act of being friendly strengthens his wrath. The false smiles he bestows on
his foe act like sunshine on the plant of his wrath. The friendlier the speaker seems, the more hostile
he really is, and the worse are his intentions. The clarity of innocence is gone. The speaker's behavior
does not look like what it is. He is not what he seems. By using metaphor, by talking about anger as if
it were a plant and about hypocrisy as if it were sunshine, the speaker represents the duplicity of his
behavior in his language. He makes his behavior appear more attractive than it is.

Third Quatrain
What is a figure of speech, a metaphor, in the second quatrain seems to become the thing itself, an
actual tree, in the third. "And it grew both day and night," the speaker says. The "it" must refer to his
wrath, which he has been cultivating with "smiles, / And … soft deceitful wiles." In the second line of
the third quatrain, however, "it" bears "an apple bright." The wrath has become an actual tree. Anger
does not bear apples. Apple trees do. A feeling has been given so much weight that it has become a
presence, an actual thing. The fruit of the speaker's...

What are the moral lessons in A Poison Tree by William Blake?

William Blake intends, in A Poison Tree, to warn his readers that if they ignore his message regarding
the "deceitful wiles" that cause hatred to intensify due to a lack of communication, they too can end
up "outstretched beneath the tree” or be a person destroyed by his own "wrath." In the poem, the
narrator's "foe" becomes less afraid of the narrator, and does not realize the depth of his hatred as
the narrator "sunned it with smiles" misleading the enemy. The deceit becomes so intense that it
bears "an apple bright." Most readers would be familiar with any story of the core or centre of an
apple being bad, as it appears in The Creation, when Eve first eats from the apple and then deceives
Adam- the figurative "poison" being how they lost their innocence and Eve effectively poisoned
Adam's mind and also in Snow White, the wicked queen deceives Snow White, also an innocent young
girl literally poisoned.

The moral lessons in A Poison Tree include the need to be cautious of the motives of others and the
ability of others to manipulate the innocent. Furthermore, the reader should recognize evil within
himself before it becomes destructive and he is "glad" to see his enemy dead, even though he lured
him to his death. The reader should ensure open communication and should not nurture hatred or
"wrath” or it will "grow."