How did the persona of "A Poison Tree" deal with his anger while his enemy was alive? Give two things he did.

In "The Poison Tree," the persona deals with his anger while his enemy is still alive by nurturing it. He does this in two ways. First, as Blake puts it, he "water'd it in fears / night and morning with my tears." This means that when the persona wakes up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night he remembers over and over how he has been hurt by his enemy. He...

In "The Poison Tree," the persona deals with his anger while his enemy is still alive by nurturing it. He does this in two ways. First, as Blake puts it, he "water'd it in fears / night and morning with my tears." This means that when the persona wakes up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night he remembers over and over how he has been hurt by his enemy. He dwells on his "fears": how his enemy could hurt him again, and he thinks about his enemy with "tears" over the original injury.

The persona also pretends that nothing is wrong. Blake states it this way: "I sunn'd it [his anger] with smiles / And with soft deceitful wiles." Rather than confront his enemy or talk it through, the persona stuffs his anger down and pretends everything is fine. He smiles at his enemy. He is kind on the surface to his enemy. Meanwhile, the unresolved anger grows and grows.

We don't know how the enemy injured the persona, but the poem leads us to believe that whatever it was, the persona blows it (or grows it) all out of proportion both by dwelling on it silently and by pretending publicly that he is happy.