"A Poison Tree" is a poem by English poet William Blake, first published in his Songs of Experience in 1794. In deceptively simple language with an almost nursery-rhyme quality, the speaker of the poem details two different approaches to anger. In the first, openly talking about anger is presented as a way of moving past it. In the second, the speaker outlines the danger of keeping anger within. The poem uses an extended metaphor to describe the speaker's anger as growing into a tree that bears poisonous apples. The speaker's enemy then eats an apple from the tree and dies. The poem is generally interpreted as an allegory for the danger of bottling up emotions, and how doing so leads to a cycle of negativity and even violence.
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The Full Text of “A Poison Tree”
1I was angry with my friend;
2I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
3I was angry with my foe:
4I told it not, my wrath did grow.
5And I waterd it in fears,
6Night & morning with my tears:
7And I sunned it with smiles,
8And with soft deceitful wiles.
9And it grew both day and night.
10Till it bore an apple bright.
11And my foe beheld it shine,
12And he knew that it was mine.
13And into my garden stole,
14When the night had veild the pole;
15In the morning glad I see;
16My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
The Full Text of “A Poison Tree”
1I was angry with my friend;
2I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
3I was angry with my foe:
4I told it not, my wrath did grow.
5And I waterd it in fears,
6Night & morning with my tears:
7And I sunned it with smiles,
8And with soft deceitful wiles.
9And it grew both day and night.
10Till it bore an apple bright.
11And my foe beheld it shine,
12And he knew that it was mine.
13And into my garden stole,
14When the night had veild the pole;
15In the morning glad I see;
16My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
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“A Poison Tree” Summary
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“A Poison Tree” Themes
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Anger and Suppressed Emotion
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Poison Tree”
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Lines 1-2
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end. -
Lines 3-4
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow. -
Lines 5-8
And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles. -
Lines 9-10
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright. -
Lines 11-14
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole; -
Lines 15-16
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
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“A Poison Tree” Symbols
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The Apple
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“A Poison Tree” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Anaphora
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Extended Metaphor
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Parallelism
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Caesura
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End-Stopped Line
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Epizeuxis
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Polysyndeton
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Sibilance
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“A Poison Tree” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Wrath
- Sunned
- Wiles
- Beheld
- Stole
- Pole
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Poison Tree”
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Form
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Meter
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Rhyme Scheme
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“A Poison Tree” Speaker
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“A Poison Tree” Setting
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Literary and Historical Context of “A Poison Tree”
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More “A Poison Tree” Resources
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External Resources
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Blake's Poison Trees — An article exploring possible influences on the poem.
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Songs of Innocence and Experience — Full text of the book in which "A Poison Tree" appears.
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Blake's Visual Representation of the Poem — The poem as it originally appeared, with Blake's own illustration.
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Blake's Radicalism — A clip in which author Iain Sinclair discusses Blake's political views.
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Britten's "A Poison Tree" — A musical setting of the poem by English composer Benjamin Britten.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by William Blake
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