A Poison Tree

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A Poison Tree is a four stanza poem with a rhyme scheme: AABB, sets of rhyming couplets with full rhyme make up each quatrain. The metre is trochaic trimeter there are three feet to each line with the beat of DAdum DAdum DAdum DA....the stress falling on the first syllable.

"I was angry with my friend;" the first line has three full feet plus the extra stressed beat at the end, total of seven syllables. The trochees force the line on, reflecting the pushiness of the speaker.

In contrast, the iambic lines steady the beat and slow the pace down somewhat: "I told my wrath, my wrath did end." The comma, splits the line down the middle - syllabic symmetry which balances out.

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In line seven the quote; "And I sunned it with smiles," is important. This becomes two trochees and an iamb, with a natural pause between it and with, to slightly wrong foot the reader.

Antithesis -In the first stanza the opening lines focus on telling a friend about anger which then lessened; in contrast the last two lines depict not telling an enemy about anger which made it grow. Some of the language reflects this: end/grow,fears/tears,smiles/wiles,day/night and so on.

Metaphor-This poem is an extended metaphor - the wrath (anger) becomes a tree, a fruit, a poison apple.

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Biblical Connection - Apple and Tree

The wrath of the speaker becomes a metaphorical tree bearing a poison apple. This allusion to the book of Genesis, chapter 3, is a clear one. The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is the poem's tree. The Serpent is the speaker, both tempting and deceitful. And Adam and Eve are the foe, both guilty of disobedience.