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Explain the following quote from Blake's "A Poison Tree": "In the morning glad I see; My foe outstretched beneath the tree."
Quick answer:
The quote from Blake's "A Poison Tree" illustrates the destructive power of suppressed anger. The speaker's unresolved wrath towards his foe grows into a metaphorical poison tree, ultimately leading to the foe's death beneath it. This outcome serves as a moral lesson about the dangers of nursing grievances, which can corrupt one's moral integrity and result in harmful actions. The speaker's satisfaction in his foe's demise highlights this moral decay.
William Blake's "The Poison Tree" is meant to teach us a lesson: when we are unhappy with someone, friend or foe, we should tell that person how we feel. If we nurse our anger inside, it will grow and eventually lead to sin and violence.
The lines you cited in the question are the last two lines of the poem. Before discussing them, let's review how Blake reaches that conclusion. The first stanza of the poem provides two contrasting scenarios:
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. (1–4)
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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. (9–12)
And into my garden stole, When the night had veild the pole; In the morning glad I see; My foe outstretched beneath the tree. (13–16)Because the foe is aware of the speaker's anger, he has now come to confront the speaker. It is not detailed what exactly occurs, but in the morning, the foe is apparently dead under the tree. We can imagine he was killed by the speaker, and it's even more menacing that the speaker is "glad" about the outcome. The anger has turned into poison so strong it has led the speaker to commit a heinous act and to even celebrate it. The speaker has been utterly poisoned by his own wrath. The moral of the poem is that we should tell others when they've angered us; if we do not, we are risking our own ethics and morality in the process.
This quote comes at the very end of the poem and reflects on the outcome of what happens when we nurse our grievances and hatred, just as the planting imagery used in the rest of the poem suggests. The first stanza of this poem presents us with two different and yet similar scenarios with very different outcomes. The speaker was angry at his friend, and told him about it, causing the death of his "wrath." The speaker was angry with his enemy, but did not talk to him about it and so his "wrath did grow" as a result. What happened as a result is that this hatred was left to grow and grow until it finally found its expression in the death of the speaker's enemy.
We are meant to read this poem allegorically and see how not expressing anger and pain is something that can result in hatred growing to such a massive extent that it causes us to do something that we regret afterwards and can result in death. The way in which the final two lines describe the speaker as being "glad" to see his dead enemy beneath the tree indicates that what has died is his own sense of moral decency through the way in which he has courted hatred and wrath to such a great extent.