A Poison Tree

I really believe in the concept that there is power in what we say out loud. This past Sunday, I was talking to my Sunday Bible study teacher, casually having coffee, and we came to the subject of faith and speaking. Because he is a grad student in Emory University, studying theology, he has to read many types of psychology books. Of the many psychologists, his favorite is Wolfgang Kohler. What Kohler and two other psychologists proved was the power of the words we speak and think. Therefore, when I can across "A Poison Tree" and skimmed the poem, I immediately thought of the psychologist and my teacher.

The poem subtlety implores the passionately anger the speaker has for his foe. Even though with his friend, he could tell his wrath to disappear, with the foe, he stubbornly refused to forgive and rather sought to grow the wrath. Taking the wrath as an animate object, the speaker waters it with the tears of fear, "sunned it with smiles,/ And with soft deceitful wiles". These lines, although seemingly weird, shows the perpetuation and cycle of stubbornness. The third stanza moves to show how the feeling of wrath takes seed and bears a fruit. The significance of the wrath becoming an apple is the Biblical illusion towards the garden of Eden, Satan, and temptation. The fruit of wrath never stops growing as "it grew both day and night". The speaker is aware that the apple will tempt his foe into consuming it. The apple, which has been poisoned thoroughly, serves as a murderous trap for his foe. The speaker's expressed anger for the enemy gives him the direction to take action, rather than smother himself in the passion of wrathful contempt. Beguiling his foe and letting his plan relay just as he wishes, the foe takes the apple in order to take something seemingly precious that belongs to the speaker away. However, into the trap the foe falls and he becomes consumed and overcome with the poison. The foe is the person who managed to give the poison to the speaker and because the speaker took action of the wrath, he is able to return the poison in the murderous plan. Because we know that Blake is the poet of Songs of Innocence and Experience, and this poem is full of dark images, the poem is of experience. The poem can be seen as a warning or relief. It is a warning against taking the desire for revenge consuming an individual's mind and action as to where the individual will take another's life away. The relief part is that the individual may find satisfaction from the murderous deed, just as the speaker does, "In the morning glad I see/ my foe stretched beneath the tree"



A Poison Tree
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 watered 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 veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

William Blake