A Poison Tree

Burning hatred, an unconstrained and uncontrollable emotion. Hate can turn people insane and push them to the point of killing. Only after, the person realizes that what they have done is irreversible, and by then, it is too late. There are many forms of writing, in which emotion can be expressed, but the one that I find most effective, happens to be poetry. A Poison Tree by William Blake is the perfect poem. It explains how hatred grows until it becomes very dangerous.

Before, it becomes dangerous, it has to start off as something small, for example, you being angry at another person. “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.” (lines 1-4) This is the first stanza in the poem, it introduces to you the difference between your friends and enemies. With your friend you still had a chance to control your anger, since you treasure them as a friend and you do not anything bad to happen to them. However, when you are with your enemy, that chance to control is gone. Here is where you plant your seed of hatred, the little seed that will soon grow up to be the apple tree of destruction.

“And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles.” (lines 5-8) This is the process of nurturing the seed of hatred. The basic requirements for a plant to grow is water and sunlight. If you only consider those two, you already provided them. In the beginning of the second stanza, it states that your fears equals to tears which is the “water” needed in your special anger-filled plant. The fake sunlight that you provide happens to be your smiles, and cunning little tricks. The fake “water” and “sunlight” ...

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...e, to not let their anger get the better of them, and if that does happens, who knows what will happen to their poor friend, hopefully they would not be found “outstretched beneath the tree.” (line 16)

Overall, you must admit, that this poem is very beautiful even though it is solely based on hatred, the poem has a nice flow to it. Though it may be better suited for people who has temper issues, people who do not have temper issues can also enjoy this poem. The way you start off angry at your enemy and slowly your anger evolves from a level of normal anger to anger with a killing intent. Then at the end, you overcome your anger issue by getting rid of your enemy and you become satisfied. Would you kill your enemy if you were given the chance?

Works Cited

Shmoop Editorial Team. "A Poison Tree." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.