Poetry & Analysis
Broken Friendship Poems
Featured PoemsA Poison Tree
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 waterd it in fears,
Night & 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 veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
Overview Short Summary
Blake shows what happens when anger is honestly shared with a friend and hidden from an enemy. When anger is spoken, it ends; when it is secretly fed, it grows into something destructive.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Broken friendship: The opening lines show that honesty can save a friendship from lasting anger.
- Hidden resentment: The “poison tree” grows because the speaker conceals wrath.
- Trust and communication: The poem warns that unspoken bitterness damages relationships.
Craft Literary Devices
- Extended metaphor: Anger becomes a tree that grows and bears poisonous fruit.
- Symbolism: The apple suggests temptation, danger, and the result of hidden hatred.
- Contrast: Blake contrasts honest speech with secrecy.
Friendship After Love
After the fierce midsummer all ablaze
Has burned itself to ashes, and expires
In the intensity of its own fires,
There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin days
Crowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze.
So after Love has led us, till he tires
Of his own throes, and torments, and desires,
Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze,
He beckons us to follow, and across
Cool verdant vales we wander free from care.
Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?
Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?
We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;
And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete.
Overview Short Summary
The poem describes friendship that comes after passionate love has faded. This new friendship is calmer and safer, but it also carries a faint sadness because something intense has been lost.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Friendship after love: The poem explores a relationship that changes form instead of ending completely.
- Peace and loss: Friendship brings rest, but the speaker still feels absence.
- Emotional maturity: The poem accepts a quieter bond after passion has passed.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is reflective and bittersweet. The mood is peaceful but incomplete, which makes the poem useful for readers searching for sad friendship poems or friendship poems about change.
To a Friend
I ask but one thing of you, only one,
That always you will be my dream of you;
That never shall I wake to find untrue
All this I have believed and rested on,
Forever vanished, like a vision gone
Out into the night. Alas, how few
There are who strike in us a chord we knew
Existed, but so seldom heard its tone
We tremble at the half-forgotten sound.
The world is full of rude awakenings
And heaven-born castles shattered to the ground,
Yet still our human longing vainly clings
To a belief in beauty through all wrongs.
O stay your hand, and leave my heart its songs!
Overview Short Summary
The speaker asks a friend to remain worthy of the beautiful image held in the heart. The poem is about trust, ideal friendship, and the fear that disappointment may break a cherished bond.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Trust in friendship: The speaker wants the friend to remain true to the bond.
- Idealization: Friendship is connected with dreams, beauty, and inner music.
- Fear of disappointment: The poem recognizes how painful it is when trust is broken.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is pleading and intimate. The mood is tender but anxious because the speaker wants the friendship to remain beautiful and unspoiled.
To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses
As late I rambled in the happy fields,
What time the skylark shakes the tremulous dew
From his lush clover covert;—when anew
Adventurous knights take up their dinted shields:
I saw the sweetest flower wild nature yields,
A fresh-blown musk-rose; ‘t was the first that threw
Its sweets upon the summer: graceful it grew
As is the wand that Queen Titania wields.
And, as I feasted on its fragrancy,
I thought the garden-rose it far excell’d:
But when, O Wells! thy roses came to me,
My sense with their deliciousness was spell’d:
Soft voices had they, that with tender plea
Whisper’d of peace, and truth, and friendliness unquell’d.
Overview Short Summary
Keats thanks a friend for sending roses. The flowers become more than a gift: they speak of peace, truth, and lasting friendliness.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Friendship and gratitude: The poem turns a simple gift into a sign of affection.
- Beauty and kindness: The roses carry emotional meaning beyond their fragrance.
- Peaceful friendship: The closing line connects friendship with peace and truth.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
The poem uses flower imagery, fragrance, dew, skylark, and summer fields to create freshness and delight. The roses are gently personified when they seem to have “soft voices” that whisper friendship.
Sonnet 104
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceiv’d;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion and mine eye may be deceiv’d:
For fear of which, hear this thou age unbred:
Ere you were born was beauty’s summer dead.
Overview Short Summary
The speaker tells a beloved friend that time has not made them seem old. Even as seasons pass, the friend remains fresh in the speaker’s eyes.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Enduring affection: The poem presents a friend as unchanged by time.
- Memory and perception: Friendship shapes how the speaker sees beauty.
- Time and aging: Seasonal imagery shows time passing while affection remains strong.
Poetic Form Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem is a Shakespearean sonnet with fourteen lines and a closing couplet. Its movement from seasons to the final statement about beauty gives the poem a formal, memorable argument.
