“A Poison Tree” is a poem written by William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his ‘Songs of

Experience’ collection. It describes the narrator’s repressed feelings of anger towards an individual,
emotions which eventually lead to murder. The poem explores themes of indignation, revenge, and
more generally the fallen state of mankind.

Language

The vocabulary is simple

Vocabulary Meaning
Wrath Extreme/great anger; fury often marked by a desire for vengeance
Foe Enemy
Watered Poured water on plants
Sunned Provided sunshine
Dishonest behavior to make people believe things which are not true,
deceitful
full of (misleading) lies.
Clever tricks a person uses to get what he wants, tricks or to get
wiles
someone to do something.
bore Produced fruit, to carry; to give birth to
beheld Looked at or saw, perceived, noticed
veiled Covered with something to hide something partly or completely
pole The pole star which is the star that is above the north pole in the sky

Meaning line by line – Stanza 1

Line
1 I was angry with my friend;
2 I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
3 I was angry with my foe;
4 I told it not, my wrath did grow
Meaning
I was angry with my friend because we had a
misunderstanding
I told my friend about my anger. I got over my anger
I was also angry with my foe or enemy
I didn’t tell him about it. I bottled up my anger and it
intensified. It grew just like a tree growing

Stanza 2

Line
1 And I water’d it in fears,
2 Night and morning with my tear;
3 And I sunned it with smiles,
4 And with soft deceitful wiles.
Meaning
I nourished my anger/tree s I was suspicious of my foe
Daily, in my resentment of my enemy, I also cried
I tricked my enemy by smiling at him
Outwardly, I smiled and I was friendly so that he would
trust me.

Stanza 3

Line
1 And it grew both day and night,
2 Till it bore an apple bright;
3 And my foe beheld it shine,
4 And he knew that it was mine,
Meaning
My poisonous tree grew because it was full of anger,
hatred and suspicion.
Later, it bore a shiny poisonous apple
My foe saw and was attracted by it
He knew it was mine
Stanza 4

Line Meaning
My foe came into my garden and stole my poisonous
1 And into my garden stole
apple. He fell into my trap. He ate the apple
2 When the night had veiled the pole The night was dark with no stars
3 In the morning glad I see In the morning, I was happy to see my enemy
My foe outstretched beneath the
4 He was lying dead under my tree
tree

Setting

Place: In his garden, under the poison tree

Time: in the darkness of the night, the next morning

Point of view

The poet “I” in the poem so it is the “first person point of view”

Tone

Anger, bitterness and maliciousness- the persona is extremely angry with his enemy. As his anger
intensifies, he become scheming and murderous.

Accusing – the persona accesses his foe of stealing his apple in his garden at night.

Moral values

1. When there is a misunderstanding, we should talk about it to resolve our differences.

2. We should not harbor ill feelings against anyone.
3. When there is a misunderstanding, we must forgive and forget.
4. We should not bottle up feelings which is bad for us and those around us.\

Theme

1. Managing anger
- Harbouring ill feeling against someone, like anger: the basic human emotion sets the events
of this poem in motion. Although it is not necessarily wrong in itself, how we go about
dealing with anger is extremely important. If we nurture our anger, it might grow and be
harmful to us. In this poem, two days of handling anger were shown with different
outcomes. In the first scenario, the anger disappeared but in the second the anger grew into
something aggressive and negative.

2. Importance of communication
- The poet/speaker communicates a direct moral lesson to the reader about the disastrous
consequences of his own failure to communicate with another person. If the persona had
communicated with his enemy, his anger would have been controlled. However, his refusal
to communicate has allowed anger to become something that is very destructive. If we talk,
anger might just reduce sand it might just ease our troubles. In turn, it will prevent us
causing us from causing hurt unto others.