What is the tone of "The Poison Tree" by William Blake?

When we talk about the tone of a poem, we are assessing what the writer's attitude seems to be. How does the writer seem to feel about the situation he is describing—is he contemplative, outraged, wistful, sarcastic? How does the poem make you feel—does it radiate positivity or melancholy? There is an element of subjectivity in what we perceive the tone of a poem to be, but thinking about the attitude of the poet is a good place to start.

In Blake's poem "A Poison Tree," the tone is almost clinically detached and calculated, at odds with the poem's actual content. This is particularly, chillingly clear in the final two lines, when the speaker says he is "glad" to find his "foe outstretched beneath the tree."

Throughout the poem, there is a sense that the speaker is biding his time, patiently and intently watering his tree of wrath. The regular rhythm and structure of the poem, complete with the repetition of "And," adds to this ritualistic sense, as if the speaker is performing a kind of spell. The detached attitude of the speaker to such elements as "fears" and "deceitful wiles" is unsettling; the tone seems at odds with the ultimate outcome. This causes us to question whether there is judgment, potentially, underlying the poet's tone—is it ironic? Does he intend us to question and interrogate the attitude of this speaker whose approach to his "foe" is so cold?

William Blake's poem "The Poison Tree" depicts how anger manifests differently in individuals with regard to their friends and enemies. The speaker expresses how easy it is to forgive a friend and points out how his anger grows towards his enemy, who he does not forgive. The tone of the poem is furtive, ominous, and aggressive. The speaker confesses how he secretively allows his anger to grow and metaphorically compares it to a tree that bears a poisonous apple. The speaker sarcastically smiles and tricks his enemy while he continues to let his hate build. The reader can feel the tension growing and expects something bad to happen to the speaker's enemy. In the last stanza of the poem, the speaker's enemy dies after biting into the poisoned apple. Blake's poem expresses how manifested hate and bitterness can become lethal. The tone of the poem coincides with the speaker's furtive plans of vengeance, which eventually kill his enemy.

That's a great question.

There is a layered or ambiguous tone to this poem.

The content of a work is, in some works, distinct from the tone. That isn't really the case here. The poem's content is marked by so many angry words--"wrath," "angry," "foe," etc. You can't help but hear part of the tone as, well, angry.

However, the tone itself is calmer, more distant, rational, and measured. The regularity of the rhyme, and the simplicity ("friend" and "end," "foe" and "grow," etc.) makes it more playful and singsong. The combination creates a tone of reflection, but also perhaps of denial and repression.

Take the narrator at his word: he hates this person, and considers him his enemy. If that's the case, then the ability to speak in so calm and measured a fashion means he is fundamentally divided, even hypocritical about his emotions.

What is the speaker's attitude in "A Poison Tree" by William Blake?

In “A Poison Tree,” the speaker is most certainly vengeful – he speaks of nurturing anger, not of expressing it but of letting it fester within him, allowing it to grow by giving to it the elements of his sinister plotting – “…smiles/and soft, deceitful wiles.” He is thus appearing to a “foe” as if he were a friend, planning all the time a way to get back at this person for some undefined fault.

The contrast should be mentioned between how the speaker reacts to anger at a friend versus anger at a foe – in the first verse he voices his ire at a friend, and the ire therefore dissipates. However, because he doesn’t have the same relationship with his foe as with his friend, he says nothing about his anger and instead allows the nature of their relationship to kick-start this evolution of anger into revenge.

In the third stanza, Blake writes, “And it grew both day and night,/Til it bore an apple bright.” This apple is the physical representation of the nefarious acts born from wrath, and which poisons not only the victim of the revenge, but the tree from which it springs forth – in this case, the speaker himself. This is illustrated definitively at the end of the poem, when the speaker is “glad” to find his “foe outstretched beneath the tree.” If we interpret this to mean that his foe has taken the poisoned apple, has been deceived by the speaker’s cunning vengeful plot, and has been killed as a result, we can then assume that the speaker’s character has indeed been poisoned, for he rejoices in the death of another man -- moreover, a death of the speaker's own invention.

The poem therefore notes the terrible transformation that stems from burying one’s emotions rather than expressing them – by allowing one’s anger to turn to wrath, by nurturing it with guile and negativity, one will not only poison one’s relationships but oneself as well. 

As with most of Blake’s poems, there are many layers of symbolism within “A Poison Tree” – for more, and for the religious and historical context of this poem, check out the eNotes analysis page.

In "A Poison Tree," how does diction convey the speaker's tone?

Let's define two terms before we consider their use in the poem: 

Diction: the choice and use of words and phrases in a text

Tone: the general character or attitude of a piece, carefully cultivated by the author

Now let's look at how Blake's diction conveys the speaker's tone: 

"my wrath did grow" : Blake begins the transition from speaking literally, as an emotion can grow or wane, to figuratively, transforming the wrath into a plant. His metaphor develops from his choice of the word "grow".

"I waterd it in fears, / Night & morning with my tears": Maintaining the plant metaphor, Blake describes nourishing a plant with water while simultaneously insinuating that this water, or his tears, have a darker purpose and meaning: fear. 

"And I sunned it with smiles, / And with soft deceitful wiles": Continuing with the plant metaphor, Blake introduces a common comparison between smiling and sunshine. However, in this case, Blake's sunshine, or his smiles, are false in nature, or as he says, deceitful. 

"Till it bore an apple bright": The plant that Blake has been cultivating, his wrath, bears fruit, or is fulfilled (a common synonymous phrase would be 'comes to fruition'). The choice of an apple is particularly loaded with symbolic undertones given Blake's Christian background and the association of apples with sin in Christianity. 

"And into my garden stole, / When the night had veild the pole": Here, Blake first puts the reader on his side by characterizing his foe as someone evil who steals at night. Metaphorically, the foe seeks contact with the speaker's fully realized wrath. 

"In the morning glad I see; / My foe outstretched beneath the tree": The speaker's celebration is a bit disturbing given that he is glad to see his foe dead. The implications here are that the fruit of the wrath was poisonous, as negative emotions are wont to be, and that the speaker has triumphed over the foe. 

Therefore: Blake's speaker in the poem "A Poison Tree" uses a tone that is dark but justified, a tone cultivated by the metaphor of the speaker's wrath as a poisoned apple, nurtured by the speaker's resentment and stolen by the speaker's foe. 

What is the tone of the poem "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 waterd it in fears,                    5
  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.                              10
  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;                              15
  My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

The tone is very matter-of-fact with a hint of satisfaction. The speaker was angry, and he did nothing about it. The anger poisoned the soil of the tree creating poison fruit. He knew the enemy would be tempted by the fruit. He was correct, and revenge was successful.