A Poison Tree

"A Poison Tree" is a poem written by William Blake, published in 1794 as part of his Songs of Experience collection.

[1] The two books were published together under the merged title Songs of Innocence and Experience, showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul: the author and printer, W. Blake[1] featuring 54 plates.

[3] Only 5 of the poems from Songs of Experience appeared individually before 1839 with[4] "A Poison Tree" first published in the 1830 London University Magazine.

[5] The original title of the poem is "Christian Forbearance",[6] and was placed as number 10 in the Rossetti manuscript,[7] printed on a plate illustrated by a corpse under a barren tree.

The body was shown similarly to the crucified corpse of Blake's "A Negro on the Rack" in John Gabriel Stedman's Narrative.

[12] Blake, like Coleridge, believed that anger needed to be expressed, but both were wary of the type of emotion that, rather than guide, was able to seize control.

[19] An anonymous review in the March 1830 London University Magazine titled "The Inventions of William Blake, Paint and Poet", stated before discussing the poem: "let us continue to look over his notes, bright both with poetry and forms divine, which demonstrate an intimate knowledge of the passions and feelings of the human breast".

[20] After quoting the poem in full, the writer claimed, "If Blake had lived in Germany, by this time he would have had commentators of the highest order upon every one of his effusions; but here, so little attention is paid to works of the mind".

Andrew Stauffer, in 2009, claimed that the poem is "Blake's best-known depiction of personal anger's destructive effects".