Welcome dear students! Today we are going to learn about A Poison Tree from Class 10 English_FL. Before we begin, let us engage with the pre reading activity. All of us get angry sometime or the other. Is it good or bad to express one’s anger? Why or why not? Discuss this question in pairs with your classmates. This prompt helps you share perspectives on emotional regulation and real life conflict resolution. Now, let us move to the poem itself. I will read it exactly as it appears in your textbook, and then we will explore its meaning line by line.
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 water’d 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.
And into my garden stole When the night had veil’d the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.
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Let us now understand the poem line by line. Lines one to four establish a clear contrast. Expressing anger to a friend resolves it, while hiding it from a foe allows it to grow. The word grow introduces the central metaphor of a tree. Lines five to eight show how the speaker actively nurtures this hidden anger. He waters it with fears and tears, indicating anxiety and internal suffering. He suns it with fake smiles and soft deceitful wiles, meaning he uses a friendly facade to secretly feed his resentment. Lines nine to twelve show the anger maturing. It grows continuously until it produces a bright apple. The foe sees it shining and recognizes it belongs to the speaker. The apple symbolizes the tempting but toxic result of suppressed hatred. Lines thirteen to sixteen describe the climax. The foe sneaks into the garden when darkness covers the pole star. By morning, the speaker is glad to find his enemy lying dead beneath the tree. The poem concludes by showing how unexpressed anger becomes a lethal force.
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Now, let us review the glossary words exactly as provided in your textbook. Wrath is an archaic word meaning anger. Foe means enemy. Wiles means tricks. Beheld means saw. Veiled means covered. Outstretch’d means lying dead. Apple is a possible allusion to the forbidden fruit in The Bible. Sunned, used here as a verb, means gave light and heat, or nourished. Pole means the pole star. We will now move to the comprehension questions for your exam preparation. Question one asks what happened when the speaker expressed his anger. The answer is that his wrath did end. Question two asks what happened when he suppressed it. The answer is that his wrath did grow. Question three asks how the results differ. Open communication resolved the conflict peacefully, while suppression turned anger into a destructive force. Question four asks which word in the first stanza suggests a tree. The word grow suggests this image. Question five asks how he helped it grow. He watered it with fears and tears, and sunned it with smiles and deceitful wiles.
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Question six asks what watered it in fears suggests. The correct option is that the speaker lacked the courage to express his anger. Question seven asks what tears suggests. The speaker suffered internally for suppressing his anger. Question eight asks what sunned it with smiles suggests. The speaker cunningly hid his anger with bright smiles. Question nine asks which line shows he is scheming. The line And with soft deceitful wiles reveals this. Question ten asks which words in stanza two refer to a growing tree. Watered and sunned directly refer to gardening actions. Question eleven asks what the poet has been talking about. The imagery blends both suppressed anger and the growing tree. Question twelve asks what kind of tree grows from these elements. A poisonous, destructive tree bearing a tempting but deadly fruit. Question thirteen asks what it refers to in stanza three. It refers to the anger or tree in the first two lines, and specifically to the apple in the last two lines.
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Question fourteen asks what apple refers to. It represents the consequence of suppressing anger, the fruit of enmity, and carries a biblical allusion to temptation. Question fifteen asks why the apple is bright. It is intended to attract and tempt the foe, making the destructive consequence appear desirable. Question sixteen asks who stole into the garden. The foe or enemy did. Question seventeen asks what stole means. It means the enemy entered stealthily. Question eighteen asks what the speaker sees in the morning. He sees his foe outstretch’d beneath the tree, meaning dead. Question nineteen asks who dies. Physically only the enemy dies, but the speaker experiences a spiritual and moral death by nurturing hatred and feeling glad at the death. Question twenty asks what A Poison Tree refers to. It represents the tree of hatred from suppressed anger, the destructive effect of hypocrisy, and spiritual death from nurturing base passions. Now we tackle the close study section. Extract one reads: And into my garden stole when the night had veiled the pole. Part a asks who stole. The foe. Part b asks why. To take the bright apple. Part c asks to explain veiled the pole. It means darkness covered the pole star, indicating deep night.
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Extract two reads: And I sunned it with smiles and with soft deceitful wiles. Part a asks what sunned suggests. It suggests nourishing anger by pretending to be friendly. Part b asks to explain deceitful wiles. It refers to clever, dishonest tricks used to hide true feelings. Part c asks why he sunned it. To keep his anger hidden while secretly allowing it to grow stronger. Let us move to the paragraph writing task. You are instructed to discuss in pairs or groups how the poet uses the tree image to show the destructive effect of suppressed anger. Note down points like how silence plants the seed, negative emotions nurture it, and it eventually bears deadly fruit. Develop these logically into a coherent paragraph for your exam. Now, let us work through the activities section with model discussion points. Activity one asks if the speaker was right to be glad at his foe’s death. A model answer is no. While the foe trespassed, the speaker’s gladness reveals moral corruption. True emotional maturity requires resolving conflict, not celebrating death. Activity two asks what happened to his garden and if he was happy growing a poison tree. The garden, once a place of life, is now corrupted by hatred. He was not truly happy; his gladness is hollow and stems from spiritual decay.
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Activity three asks how he could have avoided planting a poison tree. The model answer is through open communication and emotional honesty, exactly as he did with his friend in the first stanza. Addressing anger early prevents it from festering. Activity four focuses on sound devices. The textbook explains that repeating initial consonant sounds in nearby words is alliteration, like the r sound in wrath and wrath. Repeating consonant sounds elsewhere is consonance, like the d sound in friend, told, did, end. For part a, pick more alliteration examples. You can use the s sound in soft and smiles, or the f sound in foe and fears. For part b, pick more consonance examples. Look for the t sound in night and bright, or the n sound in mine and shine. Being aware of these delicate sound devices helps you enjoy the poem. Activity five asks you to read the rhyming words of stanza three: night, bright, shine, and mine. The repeated vowel sound is the long i, pronounced as /aɪ/. This creates a cohesive auditory pattern.
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Let us now look at the note on the poet. William Blake lived from seventeen fifty seven to eighteen twenty seven. He belonged to the pre Romantic period in English Literature. Although he did not have formal schooling, he became a mystic poet by his ability to see the world of God behind the physical world. Finally, the textbook suggests two readings for further exploration. The first is the poem Hate by James Stephens. The second is the book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. I highly recommend exploring these to understand how literature and psychology both address human emotions. Thank you for listening! Keep revising and practicing. Goodbye! [CHAPTER_COMPLETE]