A Poison Tree

Two ways of dealing with anger

William Blake’s A Poison Tree (1794) follows an ordinary feeling into an extraordinary act of revenge. Its first-person speaker describes two experiences of anger: one ends through communication, while the other is concealed, cultivated and finally destructive. The poem asks us to judge not just the enemy’s death, but the habits that make it possible.

The speaker begins, “I was angry with my friend:” (line 1). Anger does not automatically destroy the friendship. In “I told my wrath, my wrath did end.” (line 2), expressing the feeling allows it to disappear. “Wrath” means intense anger; repeating the word makes the movement from possessing anger to ending it especially clear.

The next couplet repeats almost the same pattern, but substitutes a “foe” for the friend. The crucial change is the speaker’s response: “I told it not, my wrath did grow.” (line 4). The parallel sentences make the alternatives easy to compare. “End” and “grow” are opposite outcomes, while the tiny word “not” changes the direction of the whole story. Each colon in lines 1 and 3 introduces the consequence of how the anger is handled.

The friend’s conflict takes only two lines to resolve; the concealed conflict occupies the rest of the poem. This imbalance gives hidden anger far more space and power. Blake’s warning concerns not merely feeling angry, but refusing honest communication and repeatedly feeding resentment.

Cultivating a poisonous feeling

An extended metaphor develops a comparison over several lines. Here, the speaker’s anger becomes a growing plant, eventually revealed as a tree. Something invisible inside the mind acquires roots, nourishment and poisonous fruit.

The speaker explains, “And I water’d it in fears,” (line 5), followed by tears supplied “Night and morning” (line 6). Fear and misery do not wash the anger away: they nourish it. The repeated attention suggests brooding over the quarrel, allowing resentment to become an everyday activity.

The plant receives sunlight too, but in a disturbing form: “And I sunned it with smiles,” (line 7). Smiles usually communicate warmth or friendliness. Here they disguise hostility. The speaker can appear pleasant while secretly sustaining hatred, so outward kindness is no guarantee of inward goodwill.

“And with soft deceitful wiles.” (line 8) makes this deception explicit. “Wiles” are cunning tricks, while “soft” suggests a gentle manner that hides their purpose. The sibilance in “sunned”, “smiles” and “soft” can give the lines a smooth, insinuating sound. Read alongside the garden imagery, it may also suggest the serpent associated with biblical temptation.

The repeated “I” matters: the speaker waters and suns the anger. These are actions of cultivation, not simply things that happen to a helpless person. Nevertheless, its growth “both day and night” (line 9) suggests that resentment has become obsessive. The poem allows us to see both deliberate nurturing and an emotion that increasingly dominates its owner.

The attractive apple and the forbidden garden

The growth reaches its result in “Till it bore an apple bright;” (line 10). “Till” marks the culmination of a process. The apple is the fruit of the speaker’s anger, yet its brightness makes it attractive rather than visibly dangerous. Its appealing surface repeats the deception of the earlier smiles.

The speaker reports, “And he knew that it was mine,” (line 12). This detail presents the foe as knowingly crossing a boundary when entering the garden. Taking the speaker’s possession could itself be part of their rivalry. The foe also acts deceptively: he steals into the garden under cover of night, just as the speaker hides hostility beneath smiles. Conflict can therefore be read as sustained by mutual secrecy and distrust. However, the foe’s motives come through the speaker’s account, which may encourage us to question a version of events that helps justify revenge.

The apple, tree and garden recall the biblical story of the Fall: Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit after the serpent’s temptation, lose their innocence and face mortality. The apple became a familiar representation of that forbidden fruit. Blake draws on this association to turn a personal quarrel into a story of temptation and moral corruption.

The speaker can be read as a tempter whose attractive fruit draws the foe towards destruction, resembling the serpent. Alternatively, ownership of the garden and forbidden fruit can make the speaker resemble a punitive God who draws humanity towards transgression and punishment. The first reading emphasises cunning temptation; the second questions an authority that creates the conditions for the punishment it imposes. In either reading, the biblical echoes complicate the speaker’s apparent victory: the garden’s owner has cultivated the danger.

Darkness, death and the disturbing ending

The foe enters secretly “When the night had veil’d the pole:” (line 14). “Veil’d” means covered or concealed; the darkness hides the pole of the heavens, or northern sky. The language extends the poem’s pattern of concealment from the speaker’s feelings to the setting of the final action.

The last couplet jumps straight to morning. Rather than narrating the moment of poisoning, the poem presents its outcome: “My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.” (line 16). The motionless, stretched-out body strongly suggests death, fulfilling the threat in the title.

The most unsettling word comes just before this: the speaker is “glad” (line 15). This is a moment of satisfaction, not remorse. The conflict has ended, but the speaker has reached a morally corrupted version of the peaceful ending offered in the opening couplet. The shift from past-tense narration to “I see” makes the final discovery feel immediate.

We should therefore distinguish the speaker’s judgement from Blake’s. The speaker may regard the body as a victory; readers can instead see the ending as a warning about what resentment and revenge have made the speaker become.

A simple song with a dark purpose

The poem consists of four quatrains, each containing two rhyming couplets. Its rhyme scheme is AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH. The short lines, familiar vocabulary and paired rhymes give it a memorable, song-like quality. This apparent simplicity makes the eventual death particularly shocking.

The rhythm often has a trochaic movement: a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one. The speaker’s “And with soft deceitful wiles.” (line 8), for example, can be heard as AND with / SOFT de / CEIT ful / WILES. The last foot is shortened to a single stress. The metre varies across the poem, so its song-like beat should not be mistaken for an identical pattern in every line.

The orderly form creates a contrast with the destructive emotion. It can suggest the speaker’s controlled outward manner, even while the inner anger becomes obsessive. The neat couplets may also make the account sound disturbingly assured, as if each action follows naturally from the one before it.

Anaphora—the repeated “And” at the beginnings of lines—adds action to action. Watering, disguising, growing and tempting accumulate step by step. The stanza order reinforces this progression: contrasting responses to anger; cultivation; fruit and attraction; intrusion and death. The final “see”/“tree” rhyme provides formal closure without offering reconciliation or moral peace.

Experience, religion and false restraint

Blake (1757–1827) was a poet, painter and printmaker who produced illustrated, hand-coloured books, working with his wife Catherine. A Poison Tree appeared in Songs of Experience, brought together with Songs of Innocence in 1794 to explore two contrary states of the human soul. The poem’s accessible, song-like surface sits within a collection concerned with a world damaged by cruelty, distrust and corruption.

Its earlier title, Christian Forbearance, is especially relevant to the deceptive smiles. Forbearance means patient restraint towards others. Genuine restraint might prevent harm, but this speaker’s outward gentleness masks hostility rather than overcoming it. The title can therefore be read ironically: apparently virtuous behaviour becomes a cover for revenge.

Blake drew deeply on the Bible while criticising religious hypocrisy and repressive moral rules. This helps explain why the poem does not simply condemn anger as sinful. Its opening offers honest expression as a way out; the danger emerges when anger is hidden beneath a falsely agreeable appearance.

Turning quotations into a comparative paragraph

A useful comparative paragraph begins with a shared idea, examines precise words or methods in both poems, and explains a revealing difference. Here, the label “foe” provides a starting point for comparing Blake with Hardy:

Both Blake and Hardy explore how calling another person a “foe” can lead to destructive conflict, but their speakers respond differently to that label. Blake’s speaker declares, “I told it not, my wrath did grow.” (line 4): the contrast with the opening friendship makes concealed anger a choice with consequences. The repeated “And” then carries the revenge forward in an apparently assured sequence, ending with the speaker “glad” (line 15) at the enemy’s destruction. In Hardy’s The Man He Killed, however, the soldier’s “I shot him dead because – / Because he was my foe,” (lines 9–10) breaks into a dash and a repeated explanation, suggesting that the label cannot adequately justify killing. His recognition that the other man was “just as I” (line 14) undermines their supposed difference. Blake’s Songs of Experience exposes corruption within a personal relationship, while Hardy’s poem questions the hostility created by opposing military roles. Where Blake’s speaker cultivates enmity, Hardy’s begins to recognise the humanity it conceals.

Choosing a revealing comparison

With Cousin Kate: both poems connect deception with bitterness, but Blake’s speaker practises deception while Rossetti’s speaker suffers from it. Rossetti’s speaker describes the lord as having “lured” her (line 9), whereas Blake’s speaker supplies the attractive fruit. Rossetti’s Victorian concerns with sexual respectability and unequal social power contrast with Blake’s biblical exploration of concealed wrath. Both endings offer a kind of triumph, but maternal pride in Rossetti differs sharply from satisfaction at death in Blake.

With The Man He Killed: both first-person speakers describe killing a “foe”. Hardy’s soldier says, “Because he was my foe,” (line 10), but his hesitation and repeated explanation undermine that justification. Blake’s flowing sequence and final pleasure contrast with Hardy’s interrupted reasoning and recognition that the enemy could have been a companion. The comparison explores whether hostility is personally cultivated or imposed by the situation of war.

With Catrin: both poems make relationship conflict physical through an extended metaphor. Clarke’s mother describes a “Red rope of love which we both / Fought over.” (lines 8–9), linking conflict to an enduring bond. Her irregular, unrhymed two-stanza poem leaves the struggle ongoing, whereas Blake’s regular couplets close with the destruction of the relationship’s other participant.

With Extract from The Prelude: both use natural imagery to explore an inner disturbance. Wordsworth’s speaker remembers forms that “were a trouble to my dreams.” (line 44), while Blake’s speaker ends in pleasure. Wordsworth’s sustained blank verse follows reflection and psychological consequences; Blake’s compact rhyming narrative ends abruptly with revenge. This contrast is useful for exploring guilt, self-awareness and the different effects of experience.

Central argument

• Expressed anger ends; concealed and cultivated anger grows into destructive revenge.
• Outward smiles conceal inward hostility; the foe also acts secretly.
• The speaker’s satisfaction is not necessarily Blake’s approval.

Language anchors

The speaker’s key phrases:

• “I told it not, my wrath did grow.” (line 4) — silence changes the outcome.
• “And I water’d it in fears,” (line 5) — active cultivation of resentment.
• “And with soft deceitful wiles.” (line 8) — gentleness disguises cunning.
• “Till it bore an apple bright;” (line 10) — attractive fruit conceals danger; biblical temptation.