Lyric Poem · Life
A Poison Tree
by William Blake · 1794
1I was angry with my friend:
2I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
3I was angry with my foe:
4I told it not, my wrath did grow.
5And I watered it in fears
6Night and morning with my tears,
7And I sunned it with smiles
8And with soft deceitful wiles.
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“A Poison Tree” by William Blake — quilloak.com/poems/a-poison-tree
Quick facts
- Poem
- A Poison Tree
- Poet
- William Blake
- Published
- 1794
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
- Themes
- Life, Sad
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · 4 quatrains
- Line length
- Mostly 7-syllable lines.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- William Blake1757–1827
- Source record
- PoetryDBA Poison Tree by william-blake, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1794
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 4c5e0a4e71af0fec…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.