William Blake's “A Poison Tree”, Imbibed with a Great Message: Love

Blake's “A Poison Tree”, imbibed with a great message, tell us a small story. It is all about love and hate. Simply, Love, emotion explored in human condition, is the capacity to measure our mental health. It ranks among other human needs. As a basic force in shaping reality in living, one should express it. Proverbially, Hate, whereas, has no medicine. It corrupts, poisons and maligns. It is the mischief of human heart one should avoid.

William Blake's poem "A Poison Tree" can be interpreted as a message about the importance of love and communication. The speaker of the poem describes how they bottled up their anger and resentment, which eventually grew into a poisonous tree. The fruit of the tree was golden, but it was also poisonous. When someone finally ate the fruit, they were poisoned and died.

Now coming to the poem, we find that the poet was angry with his friend and he told it to his friend and his anger disappeared:

“I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.”

But when he was angry with his foe he cherished it in himself and his angry grew more and more. Anger is the psychological incarnation of obsessive self-love or poised hatred. To his friend the poet expressed his anger while he concealed his anger with his enemy:

“I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.”

A Poison Tree: image courtesy tumblr

Whenever he met that man, each time he gave a false smile and took help of many tricks to hide his wrath. The poet watered his tree of anger with tears every day.  With fears, tears, smiles and soft deceitful wiles the poison tree was planted and nurtured. After a sometime in one night his foe stole to in his garden. In the next morning he was glad to see his enemy lying dead beneath the tree:

“And into my garden stole.

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning glad I see,

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.”

The poem can be seen as a warning about the dangers of suppressing our emotions. When we bottle up our anger, it doesn't go away. It just festers inside of us and eventually grows into something destructive.

The poem also suggests that love is the antidote to anger. When we express our anger in a healthy way, it can be transformed into love. This is why the speaker of the poem says that if they had told their friend about their anger, the anger would have disappeared.

Here ' poison tree ‘, a metaphor for anger, is that particular emotion which finds to separate relation to two people – one is the friend and the other is foe. Whenever he is in anger with friend he immediately tells his him cause of the anger and automatically the anger subsides. But with the foe or the enemy there is the wrong relationship or lack of communication. Thus he suppressed his anger that later turns in to a poisonous tree and bears a golden fruit. Thus the above statement underlined in poem is just and true to the human relationship. We can also have the reference of the biblical story of forbidden fruit in this regard.

"A Poison Tree" is a powerful poem that can teach us a valuable lesson about the importance of love and communication. When we are able to express our emotions in a healthy way, we can avoid the pain and destruction that comes from bottling them up.

Other Interpretations of the Poem:

• 👉The poem can be seen as a metaphor for the human psyche. The poison tree represents the unconscious mind, and the golden fruit represents the repressed emotions.
• 👉The poem can also be seen as a commentary on the nature of evil. The poison tree is a symbol of the destructive power of anger and hatred.
• 👉The poem can also be seen as a warning about the dangers of isolation. The speaker of the poem is alone when they bottle up their anger, and this isolation allows the anger to fester and grow.

Ardhendu De

Ref: 

Brodie’s notes on William Blake’s Songs of innocence and experience : Handley, Graham : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/brodiesnotesonwi0000hand_z5o5

Full text of “The Letters Of William Blake.” (n.d.). Full Text of “the Letters of William Blake.” https://archive.org/stream/lettersofwilliam002199mbp/lettersofwilliam002199mbp_djvu.txt

Milton : Blake, William, 1757-1827 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. (n.d.). Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/miltonblakrich

Nurmi, M. K. (1966, November). William Blake, Poet and Painter: An Introduction to the Illuminated Verse. Jean H. Hagstrum , William Blake. Modern Philology, 64(2), 166–168. https://doi.org/10.1086/389847