William Blake, A Poison Tree, The Garden of Love

1. William Blake
A Poison Tree and The Garden of Love

2. William Blake
• Born in London in 1757, Died
1827 of unknown illness
• Claimed to have religious visions
• Classical Poet and Artist
• No support besides his wife,
Catherine Sophia Boucher
• Unappreciated in life

3. Religious Views
• Started having religious visions at
4 years old
• Against Organized Religion
• Held that people should look for
God within themselves
• Did not believe the Church should
restrict love and sexuality
• Taught his wife how to have
visions

4. A Poison Tree by William Blake
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 into my garden stole
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and 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,

5. A Poison Tree
• Theme: Repressed feelings, revenge
• Four stanzas
• Rhyming couplets
• Masculine rhyme
In the end, the narrator
seems pleased with his foe’s
death but the narrator’s
humanity has been
poisoned as well by the
repressed anger he felt.

6. The Garden of Love
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys & desires.

7. The Garden of Love
• Theme: The Oppression of Love by Organized Religion
• Three stanzas
• Alternating rhyme scheme
• Masculine rhyme
This poem is about the limits and bounds
that organized religion puts on love and
sexuality. Blake paints the picture of a
garden that was untamed but beautiful,
and then ruined by the regulation and
oppression that the church created.

8. Works Cited
• http://www.biography.com/people/william-blake-
9214491
• http://www.poemhunter.com/william-blake/poems/
• http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/william-blake