The Sick Rose

• O Rose,


  The rose represents female sexuality. But beyond that it could be a woman newly stripped of her virginity, and implicitly infected by sexually transmitted disease. The rose may also represent the vagina — synecdoche for the whole person.

  "Rose" is capitalised because it is a woman's name, as well as being the flower itself and a representation of all women. The personification of this "infected flower" is a powerful device to emphasise the corruption of an otherwise innocent and untouched woman.
• Thou art sick


  On a most basic and literal level this could be a story about a woman having an illicit love affair. But this is clearly too simplistic an interpretation.

  The sickness is not only physical — particularly sexually transmitted disease — but also moral or spiritual sickness. This is a poem about sex and its morally corrupting dangers.

  Note the abrupt and perhaps unsympathetic 'thou art sick' with the exclamation mark. This suggests something deeply serious.
• The invisible worm


  The word invisible implies that her 'love' — or maybe the prostitution she practises— should be hidden away from society.

  The reference to 'worm' suggests something insidious and burrowing that will destroy. Worms are associated with the decomposition of dead bodies and decaying fruit and, here, a diseased rose.

  On a deeper level, 'worm' could be a reference to dragon, used in Old English and spelled Wyrm. This symbolises adult sexuality destroying the young "rose". Also it could be phallic imagery.

  It also alludes to the serpent Genesis and the story of The Fall of Adam, Eve, and all of mankind. The invisibility of the worm, in this context of the serpent, may refer to the 'hidden' nature of the devil, penetrating evil. The following reference to "night" is appropriate, in that it is a time when demons were believed to be active.
• That flies in the night


  The word "flies" implies that her love is 'in the air' and is constantly on her mind and she is frightened of it becoming publicly known.

  The word "night" could be seen to be when sexual intercourse usually takes place and therefore could be referring the sexual theme of the poem. Also it is dark at night and things can be easily hidden, so the secret affair between the two lovers is kept under lock and key whilst in the privacy of each other, at night.
• In the howling storm

  The throes of passion. Or a storm. A howling one. So the throes of passion. Blake did hold some fairly libertarian views about sex.

  Those with sharp eyes- or well attuned ears- can pull out "worm" from howling storm.
• Has found out

  On one level this line is telling the subject of the poem, the woman, that her secret has been revealed. Her "dark secret love" has been uncovered. It is clearly having an effect on her mind.

  On a less literal level, it is a spiritual force that has 'found out' her secret. This unwholesome love or sex cannot be hidden from the spiritual powers that will lead ultimately to her destruction.
• thy bed Of crimson joy

  "Bed of crimson joy" could symbolize the vagina, centered on that node of pleasure, the clitoris. As Georgia O'Keefe has demonstrated, when one is close enough to a rose, it does indeed look like a vulva.
• his dark secret love

  The pronoun, "he" presents the worm as an animate being; something more than just a worm. Given the connotations of evil and death, it could be interpreted as the devil in disguise.

  
  

  The clandestine, pocket-sized but big-hearted romance that we all would die for, given the chance? Or just sex itself?
• Does thy life destroy.

  Does the dark secret love of the worm destroy the the rose? The worm is viewed as the insidious, malevolent, engine of serpentine destruction in the poesy.

  The clandestine romance is ruined — the crimson joy of the rose is ultimately destructive. .

  We need to bear in mind that Blake believed in free love and was critical of the constraints of conventional morality. What he was criticising here was 'the wrong sort of love'; exploitative, selfish, and hurtful to other parties.
• Roses, like all plants, do literally face various dangers from worms, bugs, insects, and other pests. The beauty of the rose offers no

  protection against these kinds of external threats. On one level, then, the worm might represent the idea that death, destruction, and decay come for all living things. The worm—a creature of the dirt, burrowing deep in the dark muck of the earth—may also represent the way that earthly society inevitably corrupts even the purest and loveliest of beings.
• The fact that the poem personifies the worm as a hardy and determined figure—one that

  flies at night of "howling storm" in order to have its way with the rose—further suggests that the forces of destruction and/or corruption will always get their way in the end, that, inevitably, the rose will lose its innocence and die.
• "The Sick Rose" is often interpreted as an allegory for the corrupting influence of sexual desire. That said, William Blake was actually an advocate for

  sexual liberation well ahead of his time. With this in mind, the poem seems to critique the way that sexual unions are so often shrouded in secrecy, darkness, and shame. The poem thus becomes an allegory not for the corrupting influence of sexual desire itself, but for the damage caused by the suppression of that desire.
• A rose is a conventional symbol of love, romance, and femininity (often linked to the vagina itself). In this context, the worm can read as a phallic representation of the male sexual organ, which here seeks to

  penetrate the rose's bed (meaning both flower bed and the conventional type of bed). The poem certainly plays with these connotations, with the rose's "bed" offering up a kind of "crimson joy."

  But though the worm represents strong desire, it can only act on this desire by remaining hidden. And despite the mention of "joy," the union between the rose and the worm is neither openly joyful nor celebratory. The worm's desire is "dark," "secret," and can only be fulfilled in the anonymity afforded by travelling during a "howling storm" at night. The worm's desire is literally and figuratively forced underground, perhaps gesturing towards societal ideas about sex that are based on shame, guilt, and sinfulness.
• Line 1 -

  opens with apostrophe as the speaker addresses the rose itself. Though this line is simple and spare, it does a lot. The use of "O" makes the poem sound like a kind of lament, as though the speaker is mourning the rose's imminent death. The long /o/ assonance in the first two words—"O Rose"—heightens this effect. The third vowel sound in the poem, "thou," has similarly round, open feel. Together these vowels suggest weariness, but also the rose's beauty, grace, and elegance.

  These /o/ vowels also make the sound of the line's final two words all the more pronounced. Both "art" and "sick" are very different sounds from "O," "Rose," and "thou," with two different vowel sounds at work alongside harsher consonants. The final hard /k/ sound of "sick" ends the line on a note of unpleasantness and disease.

  The end-stop at the end of the line serves the same purpose, making "sick" visceral and loud. This sets-up the rest of the poem as a kind of explainer that will give the rose—and the reader—more information about why (and how) the rose is sick.
• And his dark secret loveDoes thy life destroy.

  Here, alliteration links different words together: "love" with "life" and "dark" with "does" and "destroy." This is no coincidence. In fact, these words essentially

  tell the poem in miniature. The sonic connection between "love" and "life" reflects how "love" has a major effect on "life" in the poem—in fact, "love," when "secret," can end "life" itself. The "dark" adjective, meanwhile, relates to the "invisible worm," with "does" relating to his action, and "destroy" describing the consequences of his actions. Darkness, the worm's illicit activities, and destruction, are all part of the same package.

  The particular quality of the /d/ consonant is important too. In general, the poem sounds soft, its gentle, hushed tones creating a quiet atmosphere. The /d/ sound, by contrast, is a loud, voiced consonant. Here, the sudden alliteration gives the poem an air of violence. The heavy, thudding sound reflects the catastrophic effect that the worm's actions will have on the rose.
• Form


  "The Sick Rose" is a small, compact poem consisting of two quatrains. The simple form makes the poem feel all the more like an allegory, a short tale with a hidden message.

  The poem can also be divided into two sentences—one short, and one long. Line 1 states the facts: the rose is sick. The rest of the poem (lines 2-8) then seems to wriggle down the page, mimicking the movement of the worm that has infiltrated the rose's bed.

  The stanza break serves an important function here. It's not until line 5 that the long sentence comes to its main verb phrase, "has found." This creates a kind of lasting tension and final release that mirrors the worm's quest to satisfy his "dark secret love."
• Meter

  "The Sick Rose" has a very loose meter that could be called anapestic dimeter—meaning that there are two anapests, feet with

  a da-da-DUM rhythm, per line. Again, though, the meter is very rough; while most lines do indeed have two feet, these are often a combination of anapests and iambs (da-DUM). Take the first stanza. The only true line of anapestic dimeter here is line 2; lines 1 and 3 open with iambs, while line 4 closes with an iamb:

  O Rose | thou art sick.The invis- | ible worm,That flies | in the nightIn the howl- | ing storm:

  Things get even more ambiguous when considering that a foot like "O Rose" could possibly be read as a spondee (stressed-stressed, "O Rose"). For the most part though, every line has just two stressed beats. This lends the meter a feeling of rhythm and consistency, while the varying number of unstressed beats keeps things a bit unsettling.
• Line 7 is the only line in the poem that unambiguously has three stressed beats:

  And his dark secret love

  Here the poem clusters stresses together to suggest the violence of the worm's desires; as he forces his way into the rose's bed, his presence on the poetic line becomes harder to escape.
• "The Sick Rose" has a regular rhyme scheme, with the second and fourth lines of both stanzas rhyming together. The poem, then, follows a pattern of:

  ABCB DEFE

  This pattern is fairly typical of Blake's poetry, and in particular of the poems in Songs of Innocence and Experience, the collection from which this poem is taken. It's also the rhyme scheme of a ballad stanza.

  The rhyme words effectively tell the poem in miniature: worm / storm / joy / destroy. The steadiness of the rhyme scheme, combined with the poem's short lines, quatrain stanzas, and highly symbolic imagery, makes the poem feel like an allegory, a simple story with a hidden meaning.
• The speaker in "The Sick Rose" never refers to themselves directly. This is in keeping with the poem being a sort of

  allegory, less about any specific perspective and more about the message at hand.

  This type of vantage point is also typical for the Songs of Innocence and Experience, from which this poem is taken. Here, the speaker addresses the rose through apostrophe (the rose is personified, but it doesn't answer the speaker). The speaker has a kind of omniscient knowledge, able to perceive things that the rose can't. Ultimately, the speaker is a kind of messenger arriving too late. Though the speaker delivers a warning to the rose about its fate, nothing can be done about it. The speaker also delivers this message to the reader, who is implicitly asked to consider what the rose's sickness represents.
• The Sick Rose" takes place in a garden, or another place where a red rose might grow. On a dark and stormy night, the wind "howling," a worm moves undetected through the dirt to

  reach and penetrate the rose's "bed / Of crimson joy"—the flowerbed, on one level, but also symbolically a regular old bed where people would partake in "crimson joy" (i.e., have sex). This "bed" also might be taken as an allusion to female genitalia.

  The poem is written in the present tense—the rose is sick, but isn't dead yet. The nighttime setting and the noise of the storm heighten the sense that this is an illicit union, one that the rose doesn't want and probably isn't aware of yet. This fits in with the idea that the poem, at least in part, is about the shame and secrecy that surround sex and desire. Desire is fulfilled in the poem, but in a way that is hidden and grotesque. The sense of both time and place in the poem contribute to this unease.
• "The Sick Rose" first appeared in Blake's 1794 publication Songs of Innocence and Experience. The first sequence of poems from this book had appeared a few years earlier as

  Songs of Innocence. "The Sick Rose" is taken from the later Experience sequence of poems, and thus is part of an overall effort to show what happens to innocence, happiness, joy, love—all the things that are positive and good about life—when they encounter the real world.

  Other poems in Experience similarly depict nature in a state of corruption, usually at the hands of humankind. Poems worth comparing to this one include "A Poison Tree," "Ah! Sunflower," and "The Garden of Love." In poems like "The Blossom," meanwhile, nature exerts a loving influence on the world, expressing God's love and care for his creation.
• Worms also appear elsewhere in Blake's poetry, though it's important to remember that the word could also relate to

  other mythical creatures—like serpents and dragons. Indeed, this "invisible" worm does not seem like a typical earthworm at all. In The Four Zoas, Blake states plainly that "man is a worm." With that in mind, it's tempting to view the corrupting desire of the worm in the poem with the terrible reality that man has constructed within God's creation—which, in Blake's view, has totally lost touch with how humankind is meant to live. It's also possible to view the worm as an echo of the serpent in the Bible who tempts Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree.
• In terms of what's actually on the page, "The Sick Rose" is devoid of historical context. As with many of Blake's poems, this one seems to exist both in ancient history, the present, and the

  future—indeed, it's this quality that often gives Blake's poetry a prophetic quality. That's not to say, of course, that Blake wasn't intensely aware—and critical—of his own historical situation. He was a fierce critic of the Industrial Revolution, the beginning of which saw the growth of factories in England and a rapid increase in machine-based labor. Blake felt that humankind was losing touch with what made it human: joy, communion with nature, desire, and love. It's tempting, then, to read some of that perceived societal sickness in the ill health of the rose.
• The poem is often related more specifically to attitudes towards sex during the 18th century. Blake was highly critical of the dominant church institution—the Church


  England—for the way in which it portrayed sex as something to be ashamed of, and desire as something that ought to be repressed. The poem has clear sexual undertones, but the union between rose and worm is not a healthy one. The worm desires the rose, but can only fulfil this desire through secrecy.
• Blake believed in a spirit world, including invisible "larvae" spirits which are similar to demons, and are capable of travel from

  one person's mind to another (these spirits are discussed in the works of the influential fourth-century theologian, Saint Augustine). Crucially, Blake also believed that sexuality should be embraced, not suppressed. In Blake's view, the denial of sexual desire could have damaging and destructive consequences for both the individual and society more generally.
• Assonance appears throughout "The Sick Rose," intensifying the poem's imagery and, at times, granting the poem a rather unsettling feeling of seductiveness. The device appears first in the poem's opening two words:

  O Rose thou art sick.

  These long, round /o/ sounds instantly mark the rose as a pitiable figure, signalling to the reader that it is already too late

  for the rose to avoid its fate. The /o/ sounds like a moan, and relates to the way that the rose's death is a product of both pleasure and pain. Though the /ow/ in "thou" is not itself assonant, it's a similarly round sound that contributes to this woeful effect.

  The next example of assonance is self-contained within a single word in line 2:

  The invisible worm,

  Perhaps because the poem is so short, and uses such short lines, the internal assonance of this word sticks out prominently. Think about the narrowness of the sound compared to the open /o/ vowel above. The sound might subtly represent the worm's own shape—thin, and phallus-like (even the "i" letter looks a bit like a worm!). The sound seems to wriggle through the line, pre-empting the worm's invasion of the rose's bed.
• Consonance is used subtly throughout "The Sick Rose." The first example is in the /z/ sound of "Rose" and "invisible" (lines 1 and 2). This links the poem's two main characters—the rose and the worm—

  together, showing that the fate of the former is dictated by the actions of the latter ("the invisible worm"). This buzzing sound also has a kind of seductive quality that speaks to the poem's uneasy combination of desire and sickness. The poem echoes the same sound in "flies" (line 3) and "crimson" (line 6, though this word isn't very close to the others).

  Elsewhere in the first stanza, the poem uses a dull /n/ sound in words like "invisible," "in," and "night" (lines 2 and 3). This has an insistent quality, mirroring the worm's determination to "destroy" the rose.

  The main example of consonance in the second stanza is in the hard /k/ sound in line 7:

  And his dark secret love - These are harsh consonants, reflecting the damage that the worm's violating presence causes to the rose's life-force. They are a kind of echo, too, of the other prominent /k/ in the poem, found in the "sick" of line 1 and the title. Darkness, secrecy, and sickness are all linked together. If the poem is taken as an allegory about sexual repression—particularly the way that institutional Christianity marks sexual desire as sinful—then the /k/ sound serves to draw a link between that repression and the rose's sickness itself. The last stanza also features prominent /d/ and /l/ sounds in lines 7-8, which we discuss in the alliteration section of this guide.
• "The Sick Rose" only uses a few end-stops, the strongest and most important of which appears at the end of the first line:

  O Rose thou art sick.

  The poem has just gotten started, but five words in its moment is already stopped abruptly. This plays out in miniature what is

  happening to the rose. The rose is dying, and the seriousness of its sickness is portrayed by the way that the poem is stopped in its tracks. This also adds particular emphasis to the word "sick," signalling that this is the rose's final state before death.

  The end-stop also divides the poem into two unbalanced parts. Line 1 is its own individual sentence, a matter-of-fact statement of the rose's plight. Lines 2-8 focus on the worm, the source of the rose's sickness. This paints the rose as helpless, as though the presence of the worm violates both the poem and the rose itself.

  There is also a softer end-stop in line 6, after the word "joy." Here, the brief pause offers a breath, a moment of reflection, before the poem moves forward to describe the consequences of the worm's discovery. The end-stop makes it feel, for just a moment, that perhaps the worm's discovery of this "bed" won't be such a bad thing, letting the reader hover on the word "joy" before moving towards the reveal that such joy will be the rose's downfall.
• Lines 2-6 are all enjambed as they describe the journey undertaken by the "invisible worm" in his hunt for the rose. The enjambment shows the worm's purposefulness and singular determination, suggesting an

  uninterrupted flight from start-point to destination. The specific enjambment between lines 5 and 6 has a similar effect, implying that the worm has no problem finding his prey and thus the satisfaction of his desires.
• The main theme of "The Sick Rose" by William Blake is the destructive nature of desire, specifically related to human sexuality. The personification of the rose and the worm adds a layer of symbolism that


  suggests the poem is a commentary on attitudes towards sexuality and desire in society. The poem implies that there is something unhealthy and damaging about the way that humans approach their desires, and that this ultimately leads to destruction. The personification of the rose as a feminine symbol of sexuality and the personification of the male worm as a violator who ultimately destroys the rose both contribute to the overall theme of the poem.
• "The Sick Rose" has a regular rhyme scheme, with the second and fourth lines of both stanzas rhyming together. The poem, then, follows a pattern of:

  ABCB DEFE

  This pattern is fairly typical of Blake's poetry, and in particular of the poems in Songs of Innocence and Experience, the collection from which this poem is taken. It's also the rhyme scheme of a ballad stanza.

  The rhyme words effectively tell the poem in miniature: worm / storm / joy / destroy. The steadiness of the rhyme scheme, combined with the poem's short lines, quatrain stanzas, and highly symbolic imagery, makes the poem feel like an allegory, a simple story with a hidden meaning.
• The speaker in "The Sick Rose" never refers to themselves directly. This is in keeping with the poem being a sort of allegory, less about any specific perspective and more about the message at hand.

  This type of vantage point is also typical for the

  Songs of Innocence and Experience, from which this poem is taken. Here, the speaker addresses the rose through apostrophe (the rose is personified, but it doesn't answer the speaker). The speaker has a kind of omniscient knowledge, able to perceive things that the rose can't. Ultimately, the speaker is a kind of messenger arriving too late. Though the speaker delivers a warning to the rose about its fate, nothing can be done about it. The speaker also delivers this message to the reader, who is implicitly asked to consider what the rose's sickness represents.
• "The Sick Rose" takes place in a garden, or another place where a red rose might grow. On a dark and stormy night, the wind "howling," a worm moves undetected through the dirt to reach and penetrate the rose's "bed / Of crimson joy"—the flowerbed, on one level, but also symbolically

  a regular old bed where people would partake in "crimson joy" (i.e., have sex). This "bed" also might be taken as an allusion to female genitalia.

  The poem is written in the present tense—the rose is sick, but isn't dead yet. The nighttime setting and the noise of the storm heighten the sense that this is an illicit union, one that the rose doesn't want and probably isn't aware of yet. This fits in with the idea that the poem, at least in part, is about the shame and secrecy that surround sex and desire. Desire is fulfilled in the poem, but in a way that is hidden and grotesque. The sense of both time and place in the poem contribute to this unease.
• "The Sick Rose" is a poem by William Blake that was first published in his 1794 collection, Songs of Innocence and Experience. It is part of a series of poems that explores what happens to positive and good things in life when they encounter the harsh realities of the world. The poem is a commentary on attitudes towards

  sexuality and desire, with the personification of the rose turning it into a symbol for human sexuality. The worm is also personified, with its "dark secret love" violating and ultimately destroying the rose, suggesting the damaging effects of institutionalized religion's suppression of sex.

  Other poems in Songs of Experience depict nature in a state of corruption, often at the hands of humankind, while poems in Songs of Innocence show nature exerting a loving influence on the world, expressing God's love and care for his creation. Worms also appear in other Blake poems, and the "invisible" worm in "The Sick Rose" could be viewed as a reflection of humankind's terrible reality of having lost touch with how they are meant to live. It is also possible to view the worm as an echo of the serpent in the Bible who tempts Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree.