William Blake's "A Poison Tree" makes a didactic but unworkable statement about the efficacy of talking out one's difficulties with enemies.
From his Songs of Experience, William Blake’s “A Poison Tree” consists of four quatrains, each with the rime-scheme, AABB. As with most of Blake’s efforts, “A Poison Tree” has its charm, despite its problematic use of metaphor.
First Quatrain: “I was angry with my friend”
In the first quatrain, the speaker explains that he had had a disagreement with “his friend,” and he had felt anger toward this friend, but he told his friend about his feelings and that ended the negative attitude toward the friend.
But then he had a disagreement with another person who was not his friend; as a matter of fact, this person was his “foe,” his enemy. No doubt, because he and his foe were not close enough to have a heart-to-heart discussion, the speaker did not tell his enemy of his anger. Because he did not talk out his wrath with the enemy, the “wrath did grow.”
Second Quatrain: “And I watered it in fears”
In the second quatrain, the speaker merely tries to elucidate how his wrath toward the enemy grew: he watered it with “fears” and “tears,” he covered it up in “smiles” and “wiles.”
Third Quatrain: “And it grew both day and night”
The third quatrain emphasizes how consumed the speaker became with his growing hatred of his foe. The speaker dramatizes his anger by metaphorically growing it into a poison tree that sprouts a bright, shiny poison apple. His foe sees this apple and knows that it belongs to the speaker; although, the poor foe does not realize that the apple is poison. Exactly what this apple is in nature is unclear: it may be the speaker’s smile or general behavior toward the foe.
Fourth Quatrain: “And into my garden stole”
Finally, the foe steals into the speaker’s garden, apparently eats the poison apple, and in the morning, the speaker discovers the foe dead beneath his tree. The speaker is glad to find the foe dead. But how exactly did he kill the foe?
Commentary: Two Problems
One problem here is that the speaker has set up the vast difference between his friend and his foe, yet in the end we wants readers to believe that if he had discussed his anger with the foe, the outcome would have been different, but how can that necessarily be? Because the foe is a foe, it is quite possible that if the speaker had expressed his anger, the foe’s reaction might still have triggered his wrath to grow. This possibility negates the impact of his attempt to instruct in moral behavior.
Another problem is the unworkability of the metaphor of the poison tree: the speaker’s wrath is the poison tree, but then the poison tree would be growing in the garden of the speaker’s mind. Without additional information about what actually happened, that the foe “stole” into the speaker’s mind and was killed there by the poison apple of wrath remains nonsensical.
Other Blake article: William Blake’s ‘The Schoolboy’
