In the penultimate verse there is a bigger involvement of God and religion in not only the poem but also in the revolution. Blake questions whether God had created it and whether he was pleased with what he had created, ‘Did he smile his work to see’. I believe that this means was God pleased at the terror that had been caused by something he had created. But one could argue that God created man who then created the revolution not God himself so it was not God’s fault directly. Then in the last line of the verse Blake says, ‘Did he who make the lamb make thee?’ I think that now Blake is asking a rhetorical question to the ‘Tiger’ and I think that the lamb that he refers to is a metaphor of the human people. So basically he is saying that did the same person who created man (God) create the revolution as well. And if God did create the revolution why would he unleash such rage and terror on his people and in some cases against his religion?
The last verse is the same as the first verse so I think that Blake is trying to re – affirm that the revolution is taking place and no one can stop it. There is one little change, in the last line of the verse instead of ‘Could frame thy fearful symmetry?’ it now says ‘Dare frame they fearful symmetry?’ This subtle change gives a lasting effect on the reader. I believe that it means that now the revolution is so powerful that who dares to oppose it not just who could implying that there is no one brave enough to fight against it and it will surely grow out of control very quickly.
A Poison Tree is another fairly famous poem by Blake and I think that it is very symbolic and important.
I think that this poem is about hate of another person and human evil.
I believe that the tree that Blake refers to is the tree in the story of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament and the poison is the knowledge of that tree in the story. So is Blake trying to say that knowledge is poisonous? Today this is a very common concept as many people say knowledge can be dangerous and many people have wondered how people are the happiest when they are young, unaware and without much knowledge.
The first verse has a very simple meaning and Blake speaks of how one should tell their feelings especially bad ones to the other party involved instead of holding them in and letting them grow. The verse speaks of a person who was angry with a friend and an enemy. He told his friend that he was angry and his anger passed, ‘I told my wrath – my wrath did end.’ But he didn’t tell his enemy his anger and he let it grow inside him, ‘I told it not – my wrath did grow’.
The second verse is all about how the person in the poem lets their anger grow and grow into a ‘poison tree’. Blake uses a ‘poison tree’ as a metaphor and treats the tree like a real tree and as if it needs to be watered and needs sunlight.
And I watered it in fears,
Night and morning with my tears,
And I sunned it with my smile
And with soft deceitful wiles
And it grew both day and night
I think that those few lines are very effective in giving a sense of the person’s anger growing as one grows a tree except instead of watering it with water he waters it with his tears and instead of giving it sunlight he gives it smiles and finally at the end he speaks of ‘soft deceitful wiles’ which I think means his cunning trick which could mean that he is searching for revenge on his enemy.
Then the tree grows an apple, which relates back to the story of Adam and Eve where the tree of knowledge bore an apple, which Eve gave to Adam causing them to be banished from the Garden of Eden. So that tree of knowledge was also a poison tree. So this apple from the story of Adam and Eve was dangerous and I think that Blake has cleverly used it as a dangerous thing even a weapon in his poem as well.
I believe that the person in the poem has used the apple from the tree to trick his enemy and it has worked. There might be a bit of jealousy on the part of his enemy who sees what the other person has and takes it and is then killed. There are many stories about people eating poisoned apples, namely the story of Snow White who is given a poisoned apple by a wicked lady and is put into a coma. So I think that this is a similar situation except that in this case the person is killed and lies ‘outstretched beneath the tree’.
So the person in the story has got revenge and it worked much better than it would have done if he had confronted his enemy about his anger. So I think this is one of the themes of the story, that human beings can be very scheming and evil to get what they want and this can be related through a few of Blake’s other poems.
There are a few major themes, which run through some of Blake’s poems. In the poem ‘London’ like in ‘A Poison Tree’ there is a sense of evil where all these bad things are happening but none of the richer people are doing anything about it. In ‘London’ there is also a feeling of oppression, ‘mind – forged manacles’ which also relates to the French Revolution, which I think is one of the main themes in ‘The Tiger’. In the poem, ‘London’ there is a sense of death and poverty, which could have come from the fact that Blake himself came form a poor background and used to live in the poorer areas of North London where poverty, death and disease were rife. ‘Holy Thursday’ is another poem where Blake talks of the poverty in this country. In this poem he addresses it almost directly and he says that in this great land how come there are still so many poor people for whom it is so difficult to even find food.
The final major theme is religion and Blake seems to bring this into almost all of his poems. In ‘The Tiger’ he speaks of how God created the ‘tiger’ and he speaks a lot on heaven like in the poem, ‘Ah! Sunflower.’ Here he speaks of the long journey of life and finally when the journey is over one can go into the sweet relaxation of heaven and is finally free of the burdens of life.
Although Blake’s poems are very complicated I think that Blake is a very good poet and he seems to relate many of his poems with issues of his times and his feelings at the time.