William Blake’s “A Poison Tree” is an allegory for the negative implications of holding grudges towards one’s enemies. In the poem, Blake did not confess his anger to his enemy, as he did with his friend, so his “wrath did grow” (4) into a tree that was “waterd […] in fears,/[…] with [his] tears” (5-6) which he “sunned […] with smiles/And with soft deceitful wiles” (7-8). After a while, the tree “bore an apple bright” (10). When his “foe beheld it shine,” (11) he snuck into the garden and ate the apple, and the narrator found him there the next morning, “outstretched beneath the tree” (16). In writing this poem, Blake is trying to say that ignored emotions, anger and wrath especially, can become volatile if they are not put on the table and talked about. In this instance, the narrator’s pent up anger grew and grew into a poison apple which eventually killed his enemy.

Perhaps it is not a cautionary tale, though, for the narrator remarks that he was “glad [to] see” (15)  his enemy lying dead beneath his tree born of wrath and resentment. This poem can certainly be read allegorically, or it can be read in the exact opposite way. Maybe Blake doesn’t care about the implications of repressing anger, and the “poison tree[s]” and fruits that such attitudes nurture. In contemplating the ambiguous message of this poem, I turned to Blake’s etchings for new insights, and was met still with ambivalence. In some of Blake’s pieces, the tree and the body are dark, suggesting an ominous nature behind them.  Copy R, for example, shows the enemy’s darkened body shadowed by a brown, nearly black branch, with a dark blue and purple sky lurking over a black mountain in the distance. The foreboding nature of this particular copy suggests that the “poison tree” of pent up anger is not a good thing, for it brought death to the narrator’s enemy. Other copies, however, such as copy B, do not suggest the same. In copy B, there is a lovely pastel sunrise over a mountain, as the narrator’s enemy stretches out pale and gleaming beneath the tree’s white branch. It’s a lovely image, and it almost looks as though his enemy is asleep underneath the tree. This image, beautiful, airy, and light, brings glory to the enemy’s death, painting it as a success for the narrator. From what we’ve read of Blake’s work, though, this ambiguity does not seem to be out of place. If we had read this poem alone in an anthology, though, without any of the engravings present, perhaps my interpretation of the poem would be different. When I read the poem on its own before viewing the engraving, I thought that the poem had a moral message behind it. However, upon reflecting on other of Blake’s works and his etchings for this particular poem, my stance became more fluid. The poem’s meaning changes from person to person, as well as from engraving to engraving; there isn’t one concrete message.