Happy Thing Number 2: Blake, baby.

Oh, yesterday it seemed like I could think of five things pretty easily...today, I'm filled with RAGE! It's interfering with my appreciation. Let's all put on our thinking caps...what do we feel happily about?

...Okay. Here's something that makes me unwarrantedly happy, or at least gleeful in a ragey and malicious way: The 1794 William Blake poem "A Poison Tree." There's something massively awestriking in the naked, glittering hatefulness in this poem. (Hmm. Maybe Gambino was onto something there?) For one thing, everybody's felt this way; but two, I love that among the beautiful, lyrical, trees-and-moors-and-virgins, little-"r"-romance world of big-"R" Romantic poets, there's this little ode to horrible, spiteful malevolence. You're floating along all "Little lamb, god bless thee" and "A thing of beauty is a joy forever"ingly, and then, bam! 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 watered it in fears
Night and 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 veiled the pole;
In the morning, glad, I see
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.


So let this be a lesson for you, kids. Tell your friends when you're angry. Or save it all up and get rid of your enemies. Win-win!