Today, I share with you a favourite piece of poetry from the incomparable William Blake (1757 - 1827).
This is the masterfully written “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 water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my 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 veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.
Infused with heavy lashings of human emotion, “A Poison Tree” tells a concise story within its sixteen lines of the consequences of repressed anger which leads to pure hatred when bottled up. It’s a classic sequence of a communication breakdown, or a complete lack thereof. And the manifestation of this, knitted with anger, is a formation of an actual tree bearing poisonous fruit.
By the end of Blake’s nursery rhyme-like poem we know that, if not dealt with, a dislike, a dispute, or a hatred, can grow and grow to an inevitable bursting point.
I can’t recommend the poetry and paintings of William Blake enough. This exquisite English poet and artist will always be revered and viewed as an author of some of the most timeless creative works of the nineteenth-century.
For a decent curation of his poems online, please follow this link from The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-blake#tab-poems .
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