The Sick Rose
By William Blake
O Rose thou art sick. *direct address to the rose
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night *inference of something sinister
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
This poem compresses an entire contention concerning love, secrecy, and destruction into
two quatrains. Two quatrains, a single sentence broken across a stanza break, and an
imperceptible agent that enters by night to annihilate the life of another from within. Nathan
Cervo called it "one of the most baffling and enigmatic" poems in English, and the
description holds because Blake gives us enough imagery to provoke interpretation but not
enough to settle it. The rose in this poem is traditionally interpreted as representing the
purity of a woman with the woman representing a man that violates such purity by deceitful
methods.
The rose is sick because something has surreptitiously found its way in. The "invisible worm"
flies through a “howling storm” and discovers the rose's "bed / Of crimson joy," then destroys
with what the poem calls "dark secret love." Whilst the word “howling” is in the lexical field
of evil it also has connotations of pain and suffering. The love is dark because it operates in
concealment, however it may be that it is “dark” because it is enduring pain, hence the verb
“howling”. The love is clandestine, “secret”, because it cannot survive exposure. Does the
word “secret” connote a forbidden love? This “love” destroys precisely because it is love, not
indifference that arrives in this form. Blake's target is not desire itself but desire that must
hide. Across Songs of Experience, from "My Pretty Rose Tree" to "The Garden of Love," he
returns to this point: what is forbidden becomes poisonous, and what is concealed rots.
An evil and sinister tone pervades this poem and yet this force is described as “love”,
thereby giving this poem an enigmatic dimension. The worm is the embodiment of
something bordering upon the Satanic with words such as sick, worm, night, howling
storm, dark, secret, destroy and yet he gives the rose “love”. The love however is clearly
not a pure and wholesome love as the donor of this “love” is engaged in secret pursuits:
finding the bed, expressing dark and secret love, and then ultimately, the destruction of
life.
The rose represents purity, innocence and beauty. The innocent rose is blighted by an
intrusive worm. The word “sick” infers the inception of a disease and as the poem
progresses, so does the disease, culminating in the ultimate destruction of the rose. This
destruction may symbolise the destruction caused by secrecy, deceit, hypocrisy, and
pain. The crimson joy' suggests rose's complicity both in passion and in secrecy as it has
connotations of blushing, passion and even shame. There is thus a tragic undertone to
By William Blake
O Rose thou art sick. *direct address to the rose
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night *inference of something sinister
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
This poem compresses an entire contention concerning love, secrecy, and destruction into
two quatrains. Two quatrains, a single sentence broken across a stanza break, and an
imperceptible agent that enters by night to annihilate the life of another from within. Nathan
Cervo called it "one of the most baffling and enigmatic" poems in English, and the
description holds because Blake gives us enough imagery to provoke interpretation but not
enough to settle it. The rose in this poem is traditionally interpreted as representing the
purity of a woman with the woman representing a man that violates such purity by deceitful
methods.
The rose is sick because something has surreptitiously found its way in. The "invisible worm"
flies through a “howling storm” and discovers the rose's "bed / Of crimson joy," then destroys
with what the poem calls "dark secret love." Whilst the word “howling” is in the lexical field
of evil it also has connotations of pain and suffering. The love is dark because it operates in
concealment, however it may be that it is “dark” because it is enduring pain, hence the verb
“howling”. The love is clandestine, “secret”, because it cannot survive exposure. Does the
word “secret” connote a forbidden love? This “love” destroys precisely because it is love, not
indifference that arrives in this form. Blake's target is not desire itself but desire that must
hide. Across Songs of Experience, from "My Pretty Rose Tree" to "The Garden of Love," he
returns to this point: what is forbidden becomes poisonous, and what is concealed rots.
An evil and sinister tone pervades this poem and yet this force is described as “love”,
thereby giving this poem an enigmatic dimension. The worm is the embodiment of
something bordering upon the Satanic with words such as sick, worm, night, howling
storm, dark, secret, destroy and yet he gives the rose “love”. The love however is clearly
not a pure and wholesome love as the donor of this “love” is engaged in secret pursuits:
finding the bed, expressing dark and secret love, and then ultimately, the destruction of
life.
The rose represents purity, innocence and beauty. The innocent rose is blighted by an
intrusive worm. The word “sick” infers the inception of a disease and as the poem
progresses, so does the disease, culminating in the ultimate destruction of the rose. This
destruction may symbolise the destruction caused by secrecy, deceit, hypocrisy, and
pain. The crimson joy' suggests rose's complicity both in passion and in secrecy as it has
connotations of blushing, passion and even shame. There is thus a tragic undertone to
