Meter in A Poison Tree

As with much of his verse, Blake chose to set “A Poison Tree” in tetrameter, a four-beat meter with a song-like rhythm. So musical are Blake’s poems that many of his works—“A Poison Tree” included—have been set to orchestration by composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams. Also typical of Blake is the use of the AABB rhyme scheme. These rhyming couplets lend the poem a tone of simplicity, akin to that of a nursery rhyme. The innocent tone contrasts sharply with the malicious actions of the speaker.