What is the final threshold between adolescence and adulthood?
After discussing three modern poets, I wanted to choose a traditional poet for discussion this week. William Blake, a Romantic, is most known for Songs of Innocence and Experience, wherein he tackles the duality of childhood innocence and real-world experience.
In the introduction, Richard Holmes makes the following claim:
Here then is a book that, at first sight, may appear like an eccentric, childlike, naively illustrated collection of nursery home-spun verses; but which grows compellingly into one of the great works of the English Romantic imagination… His Songs make us re-read our own childhood and supposed maturity; and alert us again to the possibility of angels and what they may be telling us.
The poem I chose to shed light on this week is “A Poison Tree”. This is my favorite poem and literary work of Blake’s.
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 watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with 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 veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
The expression “planting a seed” usually holds a positive connotation. Whether it’s imposing an ideal like religion or politics, “planting a seed” stems from promoting a change in someone to make the person more like them and less like the opposing “other”.
Blake’s traditional and narrative poem “A Poison Tree” spins the phrase on its head and dissects it through a negative lens. Instead of growing and nurturing something powerful and positive in someone else, the speaker plants their own seed in themselves. The tree symbolizes the dangers that can take root when one keeps thoughts, feelings, and emotions unchecked and unattended.
Growing up as a man, society portrayed strength through staying quiet and harboring your own feelings. This poem explains the dos and the don’ts of effective communication within relationships and within one’s own self. Expressing frustrations and processing emotions helps people to ultimately move past them. When one keeps them bottled up for too long, it only hurts them and their mindset. Monitoring one’s mental health is crucial to be the best version of themselves.
There are people in a person’s life who seek to steal and maintain said success. They wish to squash an empire while riding their coattails for as long as possible. Then, they can turn that success against them. Jealousy remains toxic and poisonous and will be the key to one’s downfall. Some people don’t want what another person has until they know that it belongs to them. People want to prove that they can take a thing, directly or indirectly. Some relationships are not worth keeping when they are rooted and nurtured in deceit and misgivings.
