A Poison Tree by William Blake

Full Text

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 water'd it in fears,
Night and 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 veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree.

Overview

A parable about the lethal consequences of suppressed anger: when wrath is nursed in secret, it grows into something that destroys.

Line-by-Line Analysis

Lines 1-4

The opening contrast is stark — anger expressed to a friend dissolves; anger hidden from a foe grows. The simplicity is deliberate: Blake is laying down a moral law.

Lines 5-8

The speaker cultivates rage with "tears" and "soft deceitful wiles," turning suppression into an active, gardening metaphor. Fear and false smiles feed the tree.

Lines 9-12

The wrath matures into "an apple bright" — an unmistakable Eden echo. The foe is drawn to it, knowing it belongs to the speaker, suggesting complicity or fatal curiosity.

Lines 13-16

The foe steals into the garden by night and is found dead beneath the tree. The speaker is "glad" — a chilling final note that implicates the reader in the logic of repression.

Themes

• Suppressed anger
• Deception
• The Fall (Eden imagery)
• Hypocrisy
• Emotional honesty

Literary Devices

Extended Metaphor

The poison tree itself — Wrath is literalized as a plant that must be watered, sunned, and eventually bears deadly fruit — sustained across all four stanzas.

Allusion

it bore an apple bright — Direct echo of the Tree of Knowledge in Genesis; the apple represents forbidden, lethal temptation.

Antithesis

I told my wrath, my wrath did end / I told it not, my wrath did grow — The opening couplets set up the poem's entire moral architecture through parallel contrast.

Irony

In the morning glad I see — The speaker's gladness at finding his foe dead is deeply disturbing — the suppressed anger has corrupted the speaker as much as it killed the foe.

Historical Context

Originally titled "Christian Forbearance" in Blake's notebook, which makes the critique sharper: the poem attacks the idea that swallowing anger is virtuous. For Blake, repression is the real sin.