"The Poison Tree" involves, first, a situation in which a person, often called the persona, confronts a friend who has made him angry. Later, he encounters a situation in which he fails to confront an enemy who has angered him. By communicating with the friend, the persona resolves the problem and his anger goes away. However, the persona hangs on to and nurses his anger at the enemy and it grows and grows, finally becoming...
"The Poison Tree" involves, first, a situation in which a person, often called the persona, confronts a friend who has made him angry. Later, he encounters a situation in which he fails to confront an enemy who has angered him. By communicating with the friend, the persona resolves the problem and his anger goes away. However, the persona hangs on to and nurses his anger at the enemy and it grows and grows, finally becoming a tree bearing poisoned fruit.
In the second stanza, the persona says of his "wrath."
And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
He has, in other words, gone over and over why his enemy has hurt him: he has felt afraid and shed tears over the situation. However, rather than say anything, he has smiled at his enemy and deceived him by pretending everything is all right. The three "ands" in the stanza connect these three actions of the persona: the fears, the false smiles, the deceitful wiles. These "ands" indicate that it was a pile up of actions that led the persona's anger to grow, not just one act. A relationship is not poisoned simply by getting angry but by the cumulative effect of how we respond: if we respond with fear, lies and deceit, we will cause the problem to grow larger and larger.
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